The Changes We Create
by oofins-Mc'goofins
Summary: Edward and Alphonse didn't really understand how they got here. Yes, some sort of transmutation circle- when isn't it? They don't know really understand why their bodies changed. But that won't stop them from making the best of their situation. Or The Elric brothers wind up in the pokemon world, as pokemon. And they still have the worst luck in the world. Rated T just to be safe.
1. Prologue

**Author's note: Please review.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon or FMA. If I did I'd probably do something stupid and ruin both of them.**

**Edit: 4-27-20. Some minor text changes.**

Prologue: a Change in Destiny

Edward Elric was not happy. The golden haired teenager sighed and gripped his face with his hands. _Why did the philosopher's stone have to be a dead end? Why did it have to require. . ._ He shuddered, the feeling of frustration and dread wracking his whole body._ Now we have to somehow find an alternative. We might never find one, but if we give up now, I won't ever be able to get Al's body back-_

"Brother, what's wrong?" Al's voice snapped Ed from his thoughts.

"You know perfectly well what's wrong!" Ed snapped, before immediately feeling guilty. Al is the one without a body, not you. Think about how he feels. "It's just, knowing that the entire concept of a philosopher stone is a dead end. . . That we are so many steps away from getting your body back. . . Uhg! This whole situation is so frustrating!"

Al sighed his own empty sigh. "I can't agree more."

The phone rang. Alphonse quickly got up from his place on the couch one the older of the Elric brothers showed no signs of moving.

"Hello?" The suit of armor slumped as much as armor could."Brother, the Colonel has a job for you."

"Whatever."

"He says he'll court martial you if you don't get there in thirty minutes."

. . .

Within the next thirty minutes, the door to Colonel Roy Mustang's office burst open.

"What do you mean you have a job for me!? We are looking for a new lead!" Ed burst out at Mustang in complete fury.

"It means exactly what I said it means: I am your commanding officer, and I am assigning you a job." The colonel responded with an even air unlike the fuming alchemist before him. "I would say I thought you were above asking dumb questions, Fullmetal, but I don't." He smirked. Ed's face darkened into a glare but before he could begin yelling at Mustang a metal hand clamped over his mouth and another held his whole body back from making a swing at his commanding officer. Edward promptly stopped fighting, though he made it clear he was still infuriated with the Flame Alchemist by a glare hot enough to melt an iceberg, and sharp enough to chop right though Mustang.

"What is the mission, sir?" Alphonse asked promptly. Ed looked overly insulted.

"I thought it might be interesting for you, Fullmetal, because it has to do with a banned transmutation circle." Ed's grudging glare instantly fell off his face and he shared a glance with Al. Roy continued. "Here's the paperwork, I expect you to meet me at the site tomorrow; 2 pm sharp." The Colonel handed Ed a manilla folder, who swiped it from the older man's hands.

He smirked. "Pleasant doing business with you, Fullmetal." He received another glare for his efforts.

. . .

The job site turned out to be a run down apartment that looked like where a stereotypical alcoholic would live. Dirty and low quality. The women who opened up the door was a skinny, frail looking old women. Her skin was pale, like she hadn't seen the sun in her entire life and a slight breeze looked like it could blow her over. Her eyes squinted as the sunlight hit her pupils.

"Ahhh, you must be the boys from the military. . ." She opened the door a little wider. "Come in. Your superior officer is already waiting for you." Her voice, unlike her appearance, is firm and strong.

Ed walked in, cringing at every slight squeak of the boards. Al walked just as cautiously behind. They knew it wasn't exactly a stealthy mission, but they prefered an ambush compared to barging in there, while giving an opportunity for the target to activate his circle. The woman walked behind them, without any caution at all.

Mustang sat in an armchair of the supposed 'sitting room'. His eyes briefly locked onto Ed's and Al's. "Glad to see you here, Fullmetal, Al." He turned to the woman. " Mrs. Lewis, tell me more about this incident."

"Well Colonel Mustang, It all started when he claimed he had visions. He had began mumbling underneath his breath, yelling unexpectedly about some mumbo-jumbo, he stayed in his room for extended periods of time, often with a high fever. . . I had feared he had began going insane. One day, I had gone into his room to give him some soup, to help with his fever. But. . . He was on the floor, carving an alchemical circle- he didn't even see me. When he was done he immediately collapsed. I took a few pictures. He woke up hours later, and I hardly even recognised, I-I think he needs to be put in an Insane Asylum. He isn't EVER himself." Mrs. Lewis had tears welling out of her eyes. "Excuse me, gentlemen. . ." She hurried out of the sitting room.

. . .

Ed kicked the door open and spotted the insane man attempting to activate the circle. After a quick scan over, it was evident it was a human transmutation.

The man certainly was muttering under his breath.

_"I need change. . . . Change . . . A new life . . ."_

"Sir! Stop!" Al appeared beside me.

"No time." Ed darted forward and punched him on the side of the head, with his left fist. But he couldn't even delay the inevitable. The insane man's hands slapped the ground and light glowed beneath Ed and he didn't hear Al yell his name, or even see him reaching his own hand over the circle in an attempt to reach him. All he saw was the golden light underneath his right foot. His eyes widened.

"_A new. . . Chance_" The man giggled maniacally.

The light turned an eerie red and Mustang stood watching helplessly at the door. Pitch black, shadowed hands grabbed and seemingly pulled Ed apart, atom by atom. Hands reached out and took the insane man. They reached into Al's armour and emerged with a small, red sphere. Al's soul. Then they were sucked into an eye and their broken pieces disappeared.

Roy Mustang cursed.

. . .

Deep in a white abyss, there was a large black door called the gate. The white figure known as Truth, floated in front of Edward.

"Hello Mr. Al-che-mist. The price has been paid for two. Know that you won't be able to come back." Ed was hardly even absorbing the knowledge; he had just woken up from the trip.

Truth giggled. Another adventure of the Elric brother's to entertain them. Truth's job does get boring, and the Elric's always have a way of spicing it up.

Hands reached out and took Ed and pulled him through the gate.

. . .

In a far away place, an eevee opened his golden eyes. This eevee was golden, unlike the usual rusty brown color. Ed looked around. He looked down to see if he had any injuries, but was shocked at what he saw. He had two paws. Like a fox paw, his mind supplied. He looked at his neck only to see a light, red, scarf like mane cover it. The golden eevee turned his head to see his back, which was covered in golden fur as well, and he also caught sight of a bushy tail. The tail was also a golden color, with a red tip. The Elric brother looked down to see his legs and caught the same sight as the front.

That was when the eevee that sat across from him woke up. Unlike Ed, he was a silver color and when he opened his eyes they were red. Ed examined them closely. They reminded him of Al's eyes when he is in the armour. . .

"Al?"

The other eevee stared wide eyed at Ed. "Ed? Why are you an animal . . ?" But the golden eevee wasn't paying attention.

"Al! You have a body! It isn't the same, but you have one! How could one transmutation circle do this? What was the price?"

"What do you mean not the same?" Al squeaked out.

Ed stopped. "You look like me, except you are silver with red eyes instead of gold." He looked around. "I guess we aren't in that dirty apartment now. . ." The Elric brothers observed the forest around them. The trees were tall and they don't look like a familiar breed.

"I don't think we are in Ametris anymore either, or even our world. . ."

"Truth." Ed left a trail of curses after the name, even throwing in some foul ones he made up from the top of his head.

"Brother. We are in a different world, with different bodies. Now is not the time to be spending your time cursing Truth. We should be finding food, shelter, and water." Al's voice was commanding, as it got when Ed was being stupid or silly, and they needed to focus. And with that, they split up to find necessities of life.

. . .

"Hey, Ed. I found something." Ed turned to see his brother walking toward him with a piece of paper in his mouth. He opened it and read aloud:

"'To Alchemist brothers,

'I sent you to the world of pokemon, where the animals are sentient beings with powerful moves and abilities. There are 18 types each one has its own weakness.' Truth put a type matchup chart inside the paper. 'You are an Eevee, a normal type pokemon, known for their species evolution capabilities of evolving into eight different types. Evolution in this world, is a quick process of gaining a stronger form, if the correct conditions are met. Each move has its own typing, power, and additional effects. Pokemon are often caught by trainers using something called a pokeball. Trainers train their pokemon to be stronger and to be used in competitive pokemon battling, where the pokemon fight until they faint. Before you go on a quest to liberate all pokemon, many pokemon enjoy battling with their trainers. If you are wondering why I sent this to you. . . I lost a bet to the 'Truth' of the pokemon world.'

"That's it, brother." Al looked up from the note.

"Figures Truth would gamble with our lives, that ba-" The elder brother wondered, looking down.

Al opened his mouth (muzzle?), but before he could even begin to respond, he was interrupted by the sudden rustling of nearby bushes. Immediately on guard, the two brothers backed up from the foliage, hackles rising.

A pair of glowing eyes emerged. It was a snake like creature and easily towered over the pair of eevees. A tail with a sharp looking end swished behind it.

_Seviper, the fang snake pokemon. It is known to sharpen its sword like tail on hard rocks. Usually living in plains, they hide in tall grass and strikes unwary prey with venomous fangs. They have a long lasting feud with Zangoose. Seviper is a poison type that does not evolve._

Al almost cried in pain from the sudden and unexpected headache that came with the new information.

The seviper crooned before hissing in a strange manner. A chuckle? Yes, that's what that was. "Maybe I should venture into the foressst more often if it holdsss thisss much easssy prey." Then he lunged.

Yelping, Al ducked to the right, while Ed dodged to the left. They locked eyes, then they ran. Seviper live in plains, where there wouldn't be many obstacles for them to maneuver around. So hopefully there would be enough stuff to slow down the snake enough to let them escape.

With a thud the seviper landed, before quickly giving chase to his prey.

The forest blurred in Al's peripheral vision, a testament to how fast they were running. Weaving around a tree, the silver eevee then slid under a fallen log, his brother right beside him. Snakes couldn't exactly jump very well, and the log was two close to the ground for the snake to go under.

Leading the giant snake to barrel into it. Thankfully, it didn't start rolling, as it was lodged in between two strong looking trees.

Ed and Al shared a look, before laughing. Neither one had expected the snake to fall for a cheap trick like that, but it worked and they were in the clear.

Now all that was left to do was survive

. . .

Ed woke up with a yawn and stretched his back out like a cat, before shaking. The Elric brothers had been trying to use pokemon moves, by battling each other, and they found out they can use quick attack, tackle, sand attack, tail whip, and baby-doll eyes. Ed, however, also knew a move called leer, but Al didn't, so they guessed it was because he perfected the art of glaring.

Murmurs and footsteps reached the eevee's ears, and drifted inside their cave- by cave they meant shallow indention in the rock- waking up Al. "Now class, we have to be very quiet in order to catch a pokemon, and not scare it away. Remember, don't let your hits faint it, or the pokeball might not work properly. Keep in mind the strength and typing of your moves. Now go and find your pokemon." A female teacher was the source and there seemed to be about fifteen kids.

"What is it, brother?" Al sleepily, and loudly asked. Ed froze. They certainly heard that.

"Be quiet!" Ed ran to Al and slapped a paw over his mouth.

Al immediately stiffened, mind flashing back to the multiple times they were attacked by wild pokemon looking for a snack, trying to steal their den, fighting over the berries they found. Even when trainers tried to catch them.

But it was too late. A child, about ten years old, peeked out around a bush, and spotted the two Eevees. His face lit up in excitement.

"Wow! Two Eevees, what a rare find. And they're both strangely colored!" The boy whispered to himself. Ed growled in annoyance. Of course they were a rare pokemon. And a weird color.

The boy took out a sphere. The top was red, and the bottom was white. There was a button in the center. He clicked it once, and it expanded, then he tossed it and a white light burst from it. "Go Machop!" A gray-blue humanoid creature appeared before the brothers, and a migraine hit both of their heads as information was downloaded into their brain.

_Machop the Superpower Pokemon. Very powerful in spite of its small size, its mastery of many types of martial arts makes it very tough. Machop is a fighting type and has a chain of three evolutions, including itself._ Of course we had to deal with a fighting type. Fan-freaking-tastic. Ed had a scowl etched on his face and Al looked done with the whole situation.

"Let's get out of here, I don't want to fight anyone, yet." Al said.

Ed and Al started walking away, but the Machop didn't let them leave. "No! Don't leave. My honor is at stake!" His trainer ordered him to use rockthrow. He picked up one and threw it. The rock landed in front of the two. The brothers sighed.

"I guess we have to fight them." Ed turned around suddenly and flung sand at the Machop's eyes, while Al used baby-doll eyes. With his accuracy and attack lowered, Ed burst forward with a quick attack, while Al went for a tackle. They hit before jumping back to avoid a retaliation.

"Hey, Laura! I found two pokemon!" Their opponent called for help and a girl came.

"Go! Zigzagoon!" Zigzagoon is a raccoon-like, quadruped Pokémon with bristly, zigzag-patterned fur. It has stripes formed by alternating layers of cream and brown fur. "We'll do it together!"

. . .

The Eevees were winning the battle, until Laura figured out a pattern. "Hey, Robby. I noticed everytime we attack, they either dodge it, or deflect it. And the golden one likes to protect the silver one." Laura lowered her voice to a whisper. "So here's the plan. First we have to team up on the silver, but the gold will fall into our trap. We will cornner them in the small cave. First we'll capture the gold, then the silver. Even if the gold doesn't catch we'll capture silver first, then gold."

Robby nodded. "Good. Alright machop, you heard her. Let's go!" Both trainers and their pokemon rushed forward. They chased the two eevees into the nearby cave, and effectively cornered them. "Machop, use karate chop! Aim for the silver."

"Zigzagoon use tail whip!" Being the faster one, zigzagoon lowered their defenses before machop struck, however, the golden jumped in front of the silver, and attempted to block it with a metal claw. But missed. And was hit in the face by a super effective fighting type move, becoming a critical hit. Add the momentum equals, ouch. The golden eevee weakly stood back up and laid a glare on the Machop, instead rushing at the zigzagoon. Golden stumbled.

"Zigzagoon use false swipe." The pokemon 's paw was enveloped in a white light and successfully hit the golden eevee. The eevee collapsed to the ground. Laura took out a luxury ball. "Go pokeball!" She threw the pokeball and it tapped Him on the head before sucking gold in. It shacked once. Twice. Three times, before it clicked confirming capture.

The silver eevee didn't even bother fighting back. After the young trainers saw the defeated look on silver's face, they spared the eevee from the pain. Robby walked forward and tapped a luxury ball on the eevee's head. The ball didn't even shake; it clicked shut without complaint.

**AN: Next chapter should be out in two weeks. Tell me what you like about this chapter. If you think both of them being eevees is a bit cliche, sorry, it'll get better.**

**Also, I have a poll on my page asking on what your opinion on what eeveelution Ed should be. At least it should be there.**

**If any of you are wondering about Al, I have that figured out.**


	2. Chapter 1

**AN: This should be a better quality than the last chapter. Check out the end for more notes.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon or Fullmetal Alchemist.**

**Edit 4-27-20: Just some minor changes**

Chapter 1: Bonding Time!

People often wonder, 'what is it like in a pokeball?' Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric get to experience what it is like in a luxury ball. The luxury ball takes a pokemon's most loved environment from their memory, and turns it into a small virtual world. For Ed, it just so happened to be a summer in Resembol. With his house behind him, he can see the rolling landscape, his tree, and farms in the distance. The luxury ball creates an illusion to make the pokemon inside as comfortable as it can be.

The only problem was he was alone. He couldn't sit by the tree with Al. He couldn't get into a shouting match with granny or get hit in the head with a wrench by Winry because they weren't there either. And Al wasn't in the same containment unit as he was. It made Ed homesick for all it's worth. Seeing everything, but not actually being there. The only thing he could do was reflect on his thoughts in a heart wrenching environment. He came to dread it.

Sometimes, voices would echo through his environment, like a speaker; clear with slight static. The voice always speaking sounded like the girl who caught him, Laura. So he assumed that was who it was speaking.

One day, he heard the voice sound quite angry. There was muffled laughter. The girl had shouted at the bullies after a few more unhearable taunts. Then there was a quiet whispering to me.

"Com'on Griffin. Show these bullies what you're made of." There was a flash of light and Ed found himself on the floor. A cry of surprise escaped him at the sudden and rather disorientating action. He shook himself and observed his surroundings. In front of him were three kids. The main kid laughed so hard after seeing Ed's small stature he almost fell over.

"Bwahahaha! Go poochyena!" With a flash of light a grey dog like pokemon appeared. Ed winced slightly as the information was downloaded into his brain. The bully sneered "Ha! Your small Eevee is even too scared to fight! Much less protect you!"

The Bite pokemon gave high pitch hyena-like laughter that sounded freakishly similar to the bullies own.

But the only thing the eevee saw was red.

Ed growled. Then he attacked. To the humans, all they saw was a flash of red with streaks of gold and the poochyena was fainted. The dog, however, was given a much brutal torment. "Shorty?! Can a shorty do this?! What else are you gonna call me, a half pint, bean sprout midget?! I'm still growing you backwater stupid idiots!" All while the golden Eevee beat up the dog quite easily, leaving stunned trainers, and the bully running with his tail between his legs.

Ed huffed and puffed- but wasn't prepared to be scooped up into the arms of his trainer. Laura hugged the eevee tightly, who immediately pushed away only to notice that his fur was wet. The lass was crying. Ed looked into her eyes and immediately noticed the relieved look in the teary, green eyes. He could read his trainer perfectly. He had no reason to be able to (Ed had only just met her), but he understood the situation. He saw how that kid has bullied her for years, even though they were supposed to be friends. How she had been injured so badly by that poochyena she couldn't go to school the next day. How today, despite having no care for his trainer he saved her. And Edward Elric understood everything.

And he found it deep within himself, to accept his fate and be the kid's partner, maybe even find friendship in it. Then, Ed, now named Griffon, pushed himself away from the teary eyed trainer with a huff. What was that about friendship? Naw, Griffon just needs to keep up appearances. Besides, the hug was getting awkward anyway.

Laura held up Griffon's pokeball before going to tap the button. . . only to have it snatched from her grasp. She looked up and saw the eevee held the capsule in his mouth.

"H-hey give that back . . !" The school girl stuttered before giving chase to the runaway pokemon

. . .

Laura landed on her knees on the soft grass of Route 104, chest heaving. She had chased Griffon all the way from Rustboro City. "C'mon. . . We have to *gasp* get back or *gasp* Ms. Larsen will kill us. . ." The brunette felt a shiver of dread run down her spine

Ms. Larsen was the girl's homeroom teacher who talked about the basic needs and knowledge of a pokemon trainer. She was a very kind teacher but when people broke her rules they were in for a rough punishment.

The mischievous Eevee stopped where he was before glancing back at the girl. He rolled his eyes. _Not _nearly_ as bad as Teacher's punishments_. Ed shivered at that thought.

He spotted Laura was a couple feet away from him, almost keeled over from being out of breath. With another eye role, Griffin walked up and rubbed his head on her knee, with a small purr. The schoolgirl gave a small giggle and tentatively pet Griffin on the head.

"Did you run away because you didn't want to be in that pokeball . . .?" Laura wondered aloud.

Edward gave a small yip of approval. _Good girl, you shall be easily trained_.

"Oh! OK then, I'll make sure not to keep you in that ball until Ms. Larsen needs me to. Anyway, we have to get back, my mom will be worried about me." With that statement, the Laura hurried back to the city, with Griffin in tow.

. . .

Laura sat under the shade of a large oak reading a book. Griffin sat curled into a small ball right beside her, lightly snoring. The leaves rustled and the puffs and wisps of clouds lazily drifted against the stark color of the blue sky. The golden eevee's ear twitched as he woke from his short nap. Blearily, rubbing his eyes with his paws, he yawned- earning a small giggle from Laura.

"Laura!" The shout caught the school girls attention as she snapped her head away from Griffin to see Robby coming into sight from a path in the forest.

Griffin too snapped his head up in time to dodge a tackle from a silver eevee.

"Al!" The two Eevee's shared a type of hug and Al grinned at Ed mischievously.

Robby and Laura also grinned. "You know what happens when a trainer meets eyes. . ." Laura said with a glint in her green eyes.

"They fight!" Robby finished in an almost scream. "I'll beat you this time for sure! C'mon, Silver!" Alphonse, AKA Silver, retreated to stand just in front of Robby.

"We're not pushovers, let's do this, Griffin!" Edward jumped back to where Laura was standing, eyes gleaming in anticipation. "Since we won last time, you get to go first."

"Alright, Silver use tackle!" Al shot forward like a silver blur.

Edward jumped into the air and used the back of Al's head like a springboard, which would have sent the silver eevee into the dirt face first if he had not used the momentum to flip and land on his feet.

"Quick attack!" Ed landed in a flash and rammed into Al's side sending him into a tree.

"Oh no! Silver, get up!" Robby grinned when Silver got back onto his feet. "Quick attack!"

"Baby-doll eyes, then Sand attack after!" Al shot forward even faster than before but wasn't able to outspeed the effect of the move baby-doll eyes. Like quick attack, baby-doll eyes was also a priority move, but instead of damage it lowered the foes attack stat.

Silver rocketed into Griffin, who shrugged off the attack, before sending sand into Al's eyes with one kick, lowering accuracy.

Al shook his head briefly to dislodge as much sand as possible, but there were still grains of sand stuck in his eye.

"Silver, try tackle!"Once again the younger Elric charged at his elder, albeit more blindly than before.

"Dodge then leer!"

The golden eevee easily out maneuvered the silver and shot a nasty glare at his still charging form. While the sand attack only blinded an opponent in the first instant, even after most sand was shaken from the eye, there was still one effect the grains of sand remains did- prevent the opponent from paying attention too closely to detail. A loose stone being a perfect example

Alphonse promptly tripped over a small pebble, his legs flailing about in the air as he was sent tumbling.

"Griffin, now, quick attack." It was all downhill from there. Ed shot forward like a bullet, with his outline blurring in a white light. With Al's defense lowered and him being worn down, Al was done in with four blows from the attack.

Robby looked down with a downcast expression as he walked over to where Silver was resting, having fainted from the fourth blow.

Laura ran over to Griffin with a happy squeal as she picked the tired golden eevee up, who promptly began squirming. Managing to escape, he dropped to the ground, before sticking a tongue out at Laura. Robby giggled at the interaction, before going to sit down by the oak tree.

The school girl immediately noticed his downcast expression and went to go sit by him. "Don't be upset because you lost. . ."

He shook his head sharply before looking away. "I-I'm not. . ." Robby muttered.

Laura sighed. "I've known you long enough to say, yes, you are upset. But don't be. Think about losing more as a challenge to overcome, something that you can learn from," She paused biting her lip in concentration, but her eyes lit up as an idea came to her. "Do you know why you lost?"

"No. . . Ms. Larsen said the only way to win is to get a pokemon's HP to drop, and the only way to do that is attacking moves. . . You hardly even use attacking moves, so why am I the one losing every time?"

"Well you know that even non-attacking moves have their own purpose. I use that purpose to help get an advantage over the brute strength that you prefer. It's called strategy."

Robby's brow furrowed in concentration."Is that what you're always reading about in your books?"

"Yep!"

"Wow. I didn't know books could help you get stronger! But I don't really like reading. . . Could you teach me instead?"

"I'm not very good at teaching, but I'll try!"

The two laughed, before moving onto a new subject. Ed, listened to the conversation before mentally declaring it was boring and tuning the two trainers out. The wind rustled the trees surrounding them, and soon Al had awoken from his brief power nap.

Ed grinned, gazing upon his little brother. The elder Elric brother had, surprisingly, grown. It wasn't much for a human's standard's, but when you happen to be a single foot tall fox, dog thing, every inch, half inch, and centimeter mattered. And now because of the growth spurt, Ed could say he was now taller than his brother.

The silver eevee stretched and yawned, before resting his gaze on his older brother. His face held a smug smile on it. Shaking his head, he stood up, only then understanding why his brothers grin had been prideful. He had grown.

Al smiled. "Congratulations. You have reached one foot and one inch tall."

It was a great accomplishment indeed.

The brothers and the friends had stayed by that tree until the sun had begun to set, talking through the evening, before heading to their respective homes, as to not miss the curfew set by their parents.

. . .

Dim, golden sunlight streamed through the half opened window by Edward's bed. With a yawn, Ed blearily looked out the window. It was evening; Laura's siblings would be coming home soon.

The garage door rumbled as it opened and mumbles could be heard from behind the second door that separated the garage from the mud room. It swung open and was revealed Alexis singing along with Skittles, her pet skitty, to some strange pop song. She shuffles in, pausing as Skittles jumps over her foot, so she wouldn't actually kick the pink cat. She seemed to drag herself into her room, where she promptly shut the door. Ed's ear flicked as he registered the muffled bang of her book bag hitting the floor.

Gordon ambled through the door a short minute later. Two pokeballs hung on his belt: one contained his Linoone, Walter, while the other contained Pumpkin, his Swellow. Ed hadn't really interacted much with Gordon, but, even though he heard those two pokemon are the strongest in the household, training them was just a fun pastime that they did to fight trainers who pass through Petalburg.

Apparently pokemon battles are a good source of cash.

Skittles skittered over to where Griffin was lounging. "Wanna play?"

Ed opened one eye blearily. "No, not really. . ."

The Kitten Pokemon visibly slumped before brightening up as something else caught her attention. Bounding away, she began swiping at the strings attached to the blinds. The senior Elric brother sighed, now used to the 'shiny-object' nature of Skittles.

Edward shifted, remembering how he first met the crazy kitten. The memory was very vivid, considering it was the first time he actually was commanded in battle

. . .

It was the week after Griffin had finally decided to give Laura a chance. Coincidentally, Both Gordon and Alexis had been on some sort of Choir and Band trip to Lilycove city. It was a popular tourist spot with its beaches, shopping mall, contest hall, and other various attractions.

It was the day they came back, Saturday, when Skittles forcefully introduced herself to Edward.

The alchemist turned Eevee had been taking a nap when he had been awoken by a paw poking him in the side and a soft cooing. Opening his eyes he saw the cooing was coming from what looked like an older version of Laura, while the poking was coming from a strange pink kitten thing.

_Skitty, the kitten pokemon, a normal type. These pokemon have a habit of becoming fascinated with moving objects and chasing them, often chasing even their own tails. In battle, they tend to puff up their tail to look more intimidating. Skitty evolve into Delcatty._

Wincing at the brief headache, Griffin looked around, spotting an older, male version of Laura. He, noticing that he was being stared at, gave a small wave before moving to go and drop off his bag in his room. The cooing had stopped and Ed briefly noted that Laura was now in the room and engaged in a conversation with what he guessed was her older sister, who he later learned that her name was Alexis.

Skitty's pink and cream face popped up in front of his own, way too close for comfort. With a stifled yelp, Edward jumped up and stumbled backwards to a much safer distance.

"Hi! My name's Skittles. You sure are a weird looking Eevee. I've never seen a gold one before. Or any Eevee before! Are all Eevee your size? Or are you just big? Or small? Or-"

Edward Eevee Elric's face, was twisted in a strange contorted way- his smile was a grimace, and his eyes screamed, 'if you say one more word, you'll regret it.' He managed to squeak out, with his words shaking from keeping an intense anger restrained, "I'm . . . not . . . short."

"Oh, okay!" and then it was over, as Skittles wandered over to attack some strange cat toy that certainly wasn't there before.

Griffin blinked. Once. Twice. He blinked three times before deciding that he's met weirder people before.

"Alrighty, then!" The loud exclamation from Laura's sister broke Griffin from his pseudo-thoughts. "If it's a battle you want, it's a battle you get! C'mon, Skittles!" With some sort of exaggerated pose, that looked like it was meant to be cheesy, she ran off in the direction of the backyard.

"Let's go, Griffin!" And Laura was off, the golden Eevee trotting at her heels.

Arriving in the backyard, Ed was met with a rectangular field marked by white lines and filled with a soft, gravelly sand. Alexis was standing on one side of the field with Skittles just in front of her. Laura moved to stand mirrored to her sister, so he reflected where the eccentric kitten Pokemon was standing.

Laura's brother, Gordon, stood in some sort of referee area and by his side was a long weasle looking pokemon. Linoone. A sigh of relief was heard from Griffin. The information download didn't give nearly as much of a headache if one was prepared for them.

Gordon called out, "This is a 1 v. 1, it ends when either pokemon surrenders or is unable to continue battling. Are both the trainers and their pokemon ready?"

Everyone gave a small nod of their head, but Griffin who slowly found himself shaking his own head. With a gesture from his trainer, the Linoone bounded over.

"You're a wild catch, aren't you?" He paused, considering, before continuing, "Well it doesn't really matter, but you need to know the rules in order to participate in a battle. I guess I'll fill you in on how it works. Name's Walter, by the way."

"Laura calls me Griffin."

"Griffin, sweet name. Pokemon battles are where two trainers fight using pokemon that they trained. Trainers call out commands, and the pokemon follow them. Pretty simple right? The trainers deal with the different strategy of the moves while the pokemon have to understand what they are trying to convey. It is a game of strength, strategy, and trust. There are plenty of rules, but for this battle there is only one you need to know: don't attack to seriously maim. Got it?"

Griffin managed to give a toothy grin that looked rather foreboding, but Walter took that as a yes and dashed back to Gordon's side.

"Alright, let the battle start." Gordon made a chopping motion with his arm, signaling the commencement of the battle.

"Griffin, use quick attack!" Ed took a quick glance back at Laura. She stood with her fists up, almost like she was about to join the fight herself. Throwing away his doubt, he shot of like a rocket, heading straight for the pink and cream kitten.

"Fake out!" And, suddenly, Skittles appeared right in front of the golden Eevee, slapping him across the face with her tail. The sudden appearance along with the crisp strike was enough to get Ed to flinch, ending the attempted quick attack. Then, without getting a chance to recover, he was rammed into by the pink fuzzball and tumbled through the dirt.

"Griffin, counter with sand attack and follow up with a tackle!" the elder Elric brother flung a pawful of dirt straight into the already squinting eyes of the Skitty, before launching himself straight at his opponent. She was sent flying and rolled in the gravel.

Skittering up onto her paws, she leapt after another order from her trainer. Another tackle.

"Baby-doll eyes then dodge!" Griffin didn't exactly know how begging would do anything to help in a battle, but then again, he and Al didn't exactly know a lot about their moves. So he figured, hey might as well, and he summoned his innermost Elicia Hughes. Shining the cute eyes upon Skittles didn't do anything to slow her down (did he use the move right?), so he ended up dodging anyway. "Now leer!"

Does glaring do anything in a battle. Make them run in fear, tremble? At least Edward knew he could get this look right, when he noticed a visible shiver go down the back of Skittles.

"Don't let him intimidate you! Use tackle!" Skitty had managed to get closer when he was executing leer, so he wasn't quite able to dodge it. When she hit him this time, it somehow didn't hit as hard as last time. Was that because of leer or baby doll eyes? Or was the kitten just tiring out?

"Now, finish this with tackle!" Griffin didn't really think that only one more tackle would end the battle, but it was worth a shot. Halting his roll from the last hit he took, he gained traction and sped towards Skittles. She took the hit and was sent flying, landing in a heap close to the center of the battlefield.

"Skittles is no longer able to battle! Griffin and Laura are the winners."

With a shout of joy, Laura ran forward to embrace one surprised Edward Elric. He found he wasn't unhappy with the contact.

Edward Elric. He might have lost his body and his world. But he still has his brother.

And maybe this new life has something to it as well.

**Notes: Was that end bad? Hope not**

**Sorry if anyone seems OOC.**

**Also, I have a poll on my page asking what eeveelution Ed should become. Review so you can explain your choice. Yes, original ones are allowed, but you have to provide fun facts and a general visualization.**

**I'll update the next chapter in two weeks.**

**Bye.**


	3. Chapter 2

**AN: Progressing plot today, more like the last chapter of the 'introduction arc.' **

**Not really sure if three chapters could even count as an arc, but I'm grouping the arc's by plot not length.**

**Disclaimer: You're lucky I don't own Pokemon or FMA.**

**Edit: 6-10-20. Some more details to the scenes. Minor plot change.**

Chapter 2: Alchemy

Those last moments seemed to be the peak of perfection for the Elric brothers in the pokemon world. If they were to freeze time at that moment, Ed and Al would be perfectly content. What happened next could only be blamed on the Elric brothers eternal bad luck as their life began to break down even further.

It started as a normal school day that would go down in history.

Laura woke up to the stomping of footsteps as her older siblings went off to middle school. She quickly scurried out of bed to say goodbye despite it being 6:45 in the morning. The lights were dimmed in the kitchen and Laura said goodbye to the retreating forms of her sister, Alexis, and brother, Gordon, as they scurried out of the door.

"See ya, kid." Was Alexis's reply as she ruffled Laura's bed head. Gordon merely gave a grunt before the door swung shut with a bang.

The youngest sibling flinched at the loud sound; loud enough to wake up Griffin, and he did not like being woken up this early. The Golden eevee's eyes slowly opened and he yawned, getting off of his bed and peeked at the clock. He shot an accusing glare at Laura as he realized how early it was. The lass gave a shrug and Ed went back to sleep with a grumble.

Laura tiptoed over to the window and lifted the shade to take a quick peek. There was a flash of light signaling thunder and the streetlights allowed her illumination to see the pouring rain outside. Right, rain-jacket it is. She quickly munched on a poke'tart and then brushed her teeth, not quite taking two minutes. She then glared at her hairbrush and began the grueling process of yanking it through her tangled up hair. She managed to get dressed in appropriate gear quickly enough

She glanced at the golden eevee. The time was now 7:30 and she still had to get that raincoat on the eevee so his fur wouldn't get soaked and stink up the school (Ms. Larsen had lat Laura keep Griffin out of his pokeball as long as he wasn't stinky, messy, or did anything to distract the students). Quickly she pounced on him and soon he was unhappy in a raincoat.

But the time was then 7:40 and they had to be at the bus stop at eight so they quickly rushed out the door and met up with Robby on the street corner, who was in panic mode as well and together they made the ten minute walk to the bus station.

It was another ten minutes wait for the bus and Ed was cold, uncomfortable, but at least dry. When the yellow bus finally appeared through the misty downpour, it looked foreboding as the headlights appeared to be wilo-whisps, spirits from certain folktales that lead people either astray or on the right path.

The golden eevee shivered slightly, and looked about wearily as if someone was watching him. Seeing no one, he quickly hopped onto the bus after his trainer.

The school bus was heated and had a loud chatter on it, even though it was half empty. Robby and Laura squished into one seat with Griffin in between the both of them. They mostly sat quiet until one of them brought something up, but after a few words about the topic they would lapse into silence, which was rather strange as the two weren't normally this quiet. Something was off in the air that got both of them strangely anxious. However, them not being ones to worry (they were rather young), soon dismissed it.

The bus stopped at the final destination- a cozy little elementary school. The students soon got out and ran to their homeroom teachers' rooms. Robby and Laura approached the 4th year. Although elementary schools graduate after 5th year, if one signed up for the accelerated training course they could graduate early at the age of ten in order to start a trainer's journey. Robby and Laura had both signed up for these classes, which is why they both had a pokemon.

Laura swung open the door and entered the classroom, Griffin and Robby following closely behind

. . .

It started during math class. The class had almost put Robby asleep within the first ten minutes when a loud boom startled him awake. Shaking the sleep from his eyes he eyed the other students- looking if anyone dropped any books or kicked a wall.

Mutters echoed around the room and Robby felt a cold dread inch its way down his spine.

He realised his saving grace would soon turn into his worst nightmare come true.

The building shuddered for a few seconds and a few more precious seconds later the alarms started blaring. A few people let out a couple squeaks at the sudden noise and a few foolhardy boys began chattering in excitement.

The teacher managed to calm them down. "Alright everybody, you know the drill. Locks. Lights. Out of sight." Ms. Larsen strode up to the door and pulled the magnet from the door. She closed the shutters in the windows and turned the light out in the room, before ushering the whole class into the storage closet conveniently in attached to the room. Griffin stood just behind the door, his golden fur spiking up as his hackles raised. Golden eyes narrowed and he stood guard at the door.

There was another shaking explosion that rattled the entire building. And another. Another. They seemed to be getting clos-

Thud. The sudden noise so close interrupted Ed's thoughts. Any noise that could have been heard in the storage room died as everyone sat completely still.

Thud. There was a pause. A moment's breath was all the time the golden eevee had to dodge the storage room door as it got disconnected from its hinges and shot inwards, the once reassuring protection turned into a lethal projectile.

Griffin didn't even have time to mourn as he dodged a fist coming straight for him. The pokeballs that were kept in the room were dislodged from the shelves as the fist impacted the ground, sending a shockwave out. Ed's eyes widened at the power display. Smoke poured into the room outside and a red inferno could be seen beyond the imposing silhouette. The fist was suddenly very close to Ed's face as a fierce uppercut sent him flying into a fall.

The super effective attack left the golden eevee bruised against the wall, but he had taken a harsher beating than that in the past, and struggled back to his feet, growling a challenge at the now visible pokemon. A Combusken.

Ms. Larsen was now standing up, pokeball in hand. With a toss she silently swore she would not let this monster hurt anymore of the children. With a flash, her meowstic appeared. His eyes gleamed with power as he launched a psyshock at Combusken, temporarily warding him off.

With the biggest threat busy, Ed's golden eyes scanned the impromptu battlefield. It was chaos. Rubble was somehow already pilling up and flames were catching on the few flammable substances in the closet. Weaker leveled pokemon streamed through the entrance and were ravaging the room, attacking children, and stealing pokeballs.

He had to stop those pokemon from getting in. Frantically looking for any way to at least stem the flood of enemies, his eyes caught on the door that had flown from its hinges. Bits of red were flicked onto it and it wasn't entirely flat on the ground.

There are people- kids- trapped underneath that door. An arm was hanging out limply, and no one seemed to notice the growing pool of a sticky red substance gathering beneath the door.

Reassessing the situation, he charged to a few of the stray pokeballs littering the ground. Releasing the pokemon inside, he was met with a wurmple, poochyena, a taillow, and the exact same machop that had been used to capture the two Eevee brothers.

All of them looked around in confusion, not seeing their trainers, only to be horrified at the disaster around them.

The wurmple spoke up."What do we need to do?"

"I need you to use your string shot to barricade that door to prevent any more pokemon from getting in. Taillow, I need you and poochyena to help free the other pokemon and protect the children." All three of them nodded, before rushing off to do as they were told. "Machop. I need you to help me lift that door. There are students trapped inside."

The small humanoid pokemon gave a nod and they both rushed back over to where the warped metal door lay. Locking eyes, Machop lifted the door, grunting from the effort. Sliding underneath the now open space, Ed was met with one crying child cradling her wrist, one knocked out (probably a concussion), and the third who had unfocused eyes and was the source of all the blood; he had been stabbed by some shrapnel and his forehead had red slowly trickling down to drip off his chin.

Quickly grabbing the most bloody one by the back of his shirt, he used all of his eevee strength to pull him out. A trail of deep crimson was smeared on the smooth ground. A wurmple cried out when she spotted the boy, who Griffin assumed to be her trainer.

With one last tug, he managed to clear the door. Taking a moment to address the wurmple, Ed said, "I need you to take off his shirt and wrap his head and where he got stabbed. Try to elevate the places where he's bleeding."

Smoke stung his lungs and his teeth ached already from dragging something twice his own bodyweight, but that didn't dissuade Griffin from rushing back under the door to get the next person, the unconscious one. Biting into the shirt, Ed tried to pull her out, but there was a tearing noise, and he fell backwards on his tail with a loose piece of fabric in his mouth. Growling, he spat it out, cursing the weak material of the girl's shirt. Instead, he pushed her on her side, ignoring the sniffling girl behind him, and began to gently push her out with his head.

He was panting, sides heaving, getting less oxygen then he needed, but he managed to push the unconcious girl out from under the door. The child still under the door was crying and Machop's shaking muscles showed he couldn't hold the door much longer. Ed swore but darted underneath it anyway, always a hero to the people.

The girl's left leg was at an odd angle and it was already starting to bruise around the knee. Tears were streaming down her face and strands of her red hair were already getting plastered to the side of her face. Learning from his last mistake, Griffin offered his neck for her to grab onto, and she wrapped one arm around his back, supporting herself with her other. Her leg was dragging uselessly behind.

That knee was definitely broken.

Machop groaned. "Please hurry up! I can't hold this for very much longer!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Griffin snapped, coughing as a wave of smoke tried to infiltrate his lungs. It was true. When you were carrying someone more than twice your size, had less air than usual, and that person had a shattered kneecap, a person can only go so fast.

"It's slipping!"

And the door fell. Ed's eyes widened, seeing the only thing in the way was the remaining half of the girl's already broken leg, the other one tucked up out of the way. She screamed as it landed with a crunch just below her already broken knee.

"Lift that door back up!" Roared Ed, seeing the twisted expression of pain on her face. Machop complied hastily, almost dropping it again in his haste. Ed hauled her the remainder of the way. "Wurmple I need you to make a cast for this girl's leg!" Griffin called out to the bug who shakily nodded.

"G-Got it!"

Doing a once over to see where he was needed, he noticed that the wurmple had gotten some of the door, but was now fainted and the barrier was ripped to shreds by some rattata. They needed more-

Somehow, through the fire and chaos that filled the large storage room, he heard the cry. "Griffin! H-Help! HELP ME!"

The golden eevee whirled and soon saw a sight that filled him with outrage. An ekans had reared its ugly head and was prepared to strike Laura.

Ed shot off like a golden bullet, summoning the stars of swift as he ran, using a quick attack to ram the ekans off and into a nearby shelf. Two of the swift stars was enough to faint the poisonous snake and the rest flew off to find knew targets. A Poochyena went in for a bite while his back was turned, only to meet the super effective double kick straight in the face.

Griffin pirouetted and began protecting Laura with his back to her, going on battle autopilot mode. A swift was sent at a nearby ekans. Double kick was sent a zigzagoon flying. A rattata almost got past his guard but was dealt with a bite. Zubat was dealt with swiftly by a swif-

Edward tripped and face planted into the tiled ground. Slowly he got back onto his paws, only to find his left back paw couldn't support him. He turned to see that it was a machop that had used lowkick. His fist glowed brightly as the fighting pokemon lunged forward in a karate chop.

"Sand attack!"

Ed somehow got a pawfull of sand that was then flinged at the machop's face, allowing time for a dodge. The machop cleared the sand from his eyes and glared at the golden eevee who was now a safer distance away from the guts pokemon.

Griffin stared at his opponent with Baby-doll eyes, and managed to land the status move twice before having to dodge.

"Leer!" Ed glared and the machop suddenly felt uneasy. Ed then sped forward in a quick attack and a combined double kick. The quick attack landed a solid impact but because of the sprained ankle, only one double kick hit. The attacks were enough to faint the fighting type opponent.

Griffin's knees buckled and he fell to the floor, only to be caught by was a short hiss, like some sort of heater started up. The room heated up and at the same time somehow cooled down.

The emergency lights burst. There seemed to be a pause in the air, as everyone hesitated, even the attackers. Five flames appeared in mid air, from seemingly nowhere. They were a pale blue that faded into a deep indigo the further they drifted into the air. Then the source of those ghostly flames appeared, slowly, as though it had been invisible and the appearance of the flames painted it into being.

Chandelure the Luring pokemon. A fire-ghost type. By waving the flames on its arms, it puts its enemies into a hypnotic trance. Tales say that beings get their souls used as fuel for the flames and leave the bodies behind, the spirits burned by he flames end up wandering the world for eternity. It is the final evolution of the Litwick chain.

The information barely imputed itself into Ed's brain before a whirlwind of blue fire was hurled straight at him and his trainer. He had to dodge.

But if he did, the fire would hit Laura.

Alchemy, his mind whispered. If only he had his alchemy. Every single time he tried, it hadn't worked, but it was now, or never.

With a roar, Ed let the alchemical energy build up within him, a blueprint to withstand the attack already in his head. He slammed his golden paws to the ground.

A circle appeared around him, glowing with a much more comfortable blue light than the incoming flames. Cyan lighting stretched around the circle.

Vision darkening, Ed managed to see that it had worked. Laura was safe, for now. A reinforced stone dome surrounded the two. Then the blackness consumed his sight, and he fainted.

. . .

The attacker's lip curled. "Interesting."

. . .

Laura didn't understand what had happened.

There had been a strange pokemon, obviously a bad guy, considering how it attacked the two of them. Then there was blue lightning. And then a mysterious stone dome appeared.

The roaring of flames grew louder as they splattered against the stone wall. The air within the dome heated up. The school girl wondered if she was going to get cooked alive.

A soft murmur echoed from the walls of her protection. Laura tensed. A bluish glow encased the dome.

Crack. A fault line slithered across the previously unblemished stone. Dim blue lights filtered through the crack as it expanded. A chunk of the once safe dome was torn free and, suddenly, all of the dome's pieces were hovering in the air, covered in a blue light.

Laura looked up as she clutched Griffin's unconscious body. Seeing the ghost type, she felt as though she had been plunged in an icy lake full of liquid fear. Her eyes re-filled with tears that spilled unbidden down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook.

The combusken looked over at the ghost type, before giving one nod. He towered over the fallen psychic cat, who was severely weakened after the appearance of the ghost type, before lifting one leg and bringing it down right on his head with a sharp crack. Blood began leaking out around Meowstic.

Robby was forced to look on with rage and terror as Ms. Larsen was kicked in the ribs by a cruel man in a strange outfit. As Griffin was wrenched out of Laura's grip and returned to his pokeball by the man, who then pocketed it.

He glanced at his Ghost type, who hovered behind him eagerly. "Eat up. Leave some survivors." He said grinning maliciously.

"Cha-chande! Chande! Chandelure!" Its yellow eyes gleamed with joy as its flames expanded, wrapping around Laura, and a few other nameless children.

Laura sobbed, green eyes glittering with tears as the ghastly cerulean flames approached her. The man paused, glancing back at the girl. "Actually," his voice was filled with malice, "spare the girl. She might prove. . . Useful."

The man grabbed her wrist roughly and she gave a cry of pain, struggling to escape. Her jagged fingernails digging into the man's wrist. He glowered at her, smacking the back of her head harshly with his freehand. She sucked in a breath, feeling her head spin as tears spilled from her eyes.

"Help!" Laura hollered, "Somebody, please! Help m-!"

She was shoved to the floor, rubbled tearing into her skin. She struggled to get up, eyes wildly looking for any oncoming danger. But her vision was blurry with tears and pain, objects around her merging into one incomprehensible mess. She couldn't have dogged the boot to the face even if she could see it.

Darkness was encroaching at the edges of her vision. All her senses were muddled now. She dimly heard a boy, Robby, scream. It could have been in pain, but it sounded more like-

She passed out before she could really understand what was happening.

. . .

Robby could only watch in horror at the scene around him. Pokemon were everywhere, stealing pokeballs, fighting pokemon that were protecting. He couldn't find Silver's pokeball. He hoped Silver hadn't been taken.

A shelf containing pokeballs rocked next to him, a few falling loose. There. The black glossy paint of the luxury ball Silver was in stood out against the standard reddish-orange. Roby was surprised he hadn't spotted it earlier, but he never was very observant.

He shot forward, grabbing it from the shelf, holding the prize close to his chest. His whole body shook with fear.

Meowstic, despite having the type advantage, was in a stalemate with the combusken that blew the door off its hinges. His eyes gleamed with the mystic psychic energy everytime he sent a psyshock or psybeam, but Cumbusken evaded almost every one, flipping and ducking, just to rush in and land a solid hit before the psychic cat could teleport away.

Rob felt a tear leak from his eye, which he furiously wiped away. He can't cry here, not now. The Luxury ball shook in his hands, Silver no doubt trying to get out so he can help fight.

"No," the trainer hissed under his breath, "I can't let you out, I can't lose you."

A rattata rushed at him, biting down on his shin. Robby cried out, gripping the pokeball even harder as it shook violently. "No!" He kicked the rodent away, and wildly scanned the area for something to defend himself with. The pokeball was warm in his hand.

He spotted a thick plastic bat propped up against a table near the back of the room. Rob scampered over to it, limping on his bleeding leg, and grabbed it with his shaking right hand. He heard a snarl and swung wildly, smacking a lunging poochyena away with a hard crack. It growled and shook its head.

Robby bit his lip in concentration, adjusting his grip on the bat. He wished it was metal, but this was as close as he got in school. Snarling, the black dog rushed at him, only to get a facefull of bat. It must have been a low level poochyena, because it didn't get back up.

He heard a faint cry, but the familiarity was what got him to look wildly around in search of the owner of the voice. He had never heard Laura sound that scared, desperate, before.

A blur of golden red caught his eye. Griffin. The eevee was a storm, raging against his enemies, each attack seemed to faint a pokemon, striking like a bolt of lightning. He was by Laura in a second, knocking an ekans away mid-strike.

There was a growling hissing noise in front of him, and Robby tore his gaze away from the fight. The rattata from earlier was back for vengeance, its buck teeth bared with its tail raised aggressively. Something red shone in the depths of its black beady eyes.

Then it lunged, and Robby dove out of the way, swinging his bat in a wide arc, smacking the purple rodent out of the air. It landed on its feet and immediately scampered to bite down on Robby's tan, alolan arm. The boy didn't have time to move, but suddenly the ball clutched in his left hand burst open.

Silver stood, but not for long, tackling the rattata off of Robby, wrestling it into submission. By submission, he meant into unconsciousness. Robby's sides were heaving, and he dropped his bat, clutching his arm where it was bleeding. The crimson liquid leaked from between his fingers.

Then his vision was consumed by the concerned expression of Silver. The eevee sniffed his open wounds, but once his inspection was over his whole demeanor changed from concerned to frustrated and upset. Silver growled something, Robby could only guess it was something along the lines of 'why didn't you let me protect you?'

So he answered. "I-I was-" he winced, "I was afraid they'd see you and t-target you because of your unique c-color-" Tears were openly streaming down his cheeks and he hiccuped. Silver shifted his focus to purely protect his trainer.

Then the atmosphere changed.

It was cold now, but Robby's skin still felt the heat, like he was feaverish. A shiver went up his spine as five blue flames faded into existence. His breath hitched when he saw how close Laura and Griffin were to those terrifying flames.

The pokemon that followed the flames wasn't a kind Robby recognised, but there was a malevolence about it that was something only found in nightmares.

The sounds around him were muffled as he focused solely on what was happening to Laura. Meowstic's scream echoed faintly in his ears. He sucked in a breath, the air felt scorchingly hot, but it also chilled his lungs.

Then Robby's frantic eyes caught sight of the man who seemed to be in charge. He wore a deep red cloak, and his arm was extended, finger point directly at Laura.

Laura his best friend.

Silver was fighting even harder now, but even more pokemon were running towards them, snarling. Silver was snarling back.

Then blue flames shot towards Laura, Griffin standing valiantly in front of her. He shot backwards and suddenly there was a blue glow, but it was much more comforting that the flames. Lightning arced briefly and the ground stretched, flowing upward and closing off as it shaped into a dome to protect the two.

Robby's breath hitched, and he sobbed in relief. The blue flames collided with the dome, heating it up, but doing nothing else. The man murmured some other command and soon a psychic glow enveloped the dome. A few seconds passed, but the first crack appeared, then another, and another. The fractures spider webbed across the dome and soon it full on shattered, crumbling as the pieces were removed and tossed to the side.

Laura was sitting in the middle, curled up, hugging Griffin who was completely passed out. The man walked up to her, grabbing Griffin by the scruff and yanking him from her loose grip. Robby's tears blurred his vision and his hands curled into fists.

The man grabbed Laura next and Robby snapped.

"LAURA!" He picked up his discarded baseball bat and struggled to his feet. Silver was by his side, growling fiercely. They moved, running at the man who thought they could take their Laura. Screaming at the man who thought he could tame Griffin.

Robby gripped his bat with two hands, now, swinging wildly at any pokemon who thought to get in his way, nearly bashing their skulls in with the strength he normally never would have. Silver was doing twice as much damage.

Then a poochyena pounced on Robby's back, his knee buckled, and he fell to the ground. The dog bit into his shoulder and Robby cried out, watching with blurry vision as the villain left with both Laura and Griffin.

The man left and all of the attacking pokemon left.

Robby howled in anger along with Silver.

He couldn't do anything! He was useless. He let the man take Laura, if only he had gotten over his fear earlier, he could have helped. His hesitance made him useless.

And then Robby vowed he would never feel helpless or useless ever again.

. . .

This is the tragedy of the Rustburro incident. Eight people passed. 18 pokemon taken. 19 people injured. One missing. Only one of the many crimes of the infamous Phantom Inferno. It is the very reason why the league beefed up security in schools and granted stronger pokemon for teachers to use as personal protection for the children.

It scared children.

Separated families.

Friends.

It was the reason Robby decided to leave home. To become the best. WIth his partner, Silver, he will become strong so he could never feel weak or helpless ever again. And then he will save Laura and Griffin.

**Notes: So how was that?**

**Did it feel like a cliffhanger? Sad? **

**Who do you think mystery man is? I was dropping hints like crazy, but hopefully it isn't too obvious.**

**I actually started typing out my plot, so that's good news. Original title was 'Violent Separation,' but someone commented about the whole alchemy situation that I had so far neglected to address, so I made the title more misleading, though there was alchemy here, so. . . yeah.**

**If you are looking forward to Al's perspective that won't happen right away, probably will be more like a flash back rather than regular chapters.**

**Please review.**


	4. Chapter 3

**AN: Since no one commented on last chapter, I didn't really know if people liked it or not- if it was cheesey or impactful. I also grew unsure if I should have waited for more build up before I dropped a huge scene like that.**

**Then I figured it was okay to drop something like that early because FMA shows Ed and Al trying to resurrect their dead mother early in all of the series.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or Pokemon. If I did, you'd probably see pokemon chimeras.**

**Edit 6-10-20: more details added due to minor plot change.**

Chapter 3: The Start of a Journey

The Investigation of Laura's kidnapping only lasted six months. Robby personally wanted to go out and look for her immediately, but both his parents were too nervous to let him go after the incident. Then they wanted to wait until the investigation was at closed, so if he found the same lead he wouldn't get in their way.

Then he figured he might as well wait till the next send off season commenced so he could get an official starter.

Robby and Silver had both trained in their free time constantly, the eevee strengthening his body and the newbie sharpening his mind. Robby had read from the strategy book, one chapter a time and practiced each particular strategy or combination for about a week with the silver eevee before moving on to the next chapter. This happened for about a year, until Robby got a better understanding of basic strategy and move combinations. The book still had a whole section for complex strategy, but that would be explored later.

Al yawned and stretched, his back arching. Looking around he saw Resembool. Off in the distance, he could see the hill and tree the Elric brothers would always sit under. If he squinted he swore he could almost see an apparition of the human form of. . . Ed. Al stared harder, almost wishing that the mirage would be real.

It never was.

This had been happening for a while, ever since. . .

_Screams. Blood. The crushed bodies of three children._

_ A red inferno becomes hauntingly indigo. _

_Five more bodies drop the the floor dead._

The silver eevee shuddered. Ever since that incident, Al could almost see Ed. Sometimes he could hear the angry shouts of him in the middle of a rant. Or hear his aggressive footsteps while he was in a different room. Whenever Al would go to investigate nothing would be there.

It had been a year and yet. . .

Al still couldn't figure out how his brother had done his Alchemy.

Al yawned once more before going to his paws. Wandering out to the porch, he looked up the sky, where he could see the tinted surroundings of the outside world.

Robby was quietly eating breakfast. Tomorrow would be when he started his official journey, though he would be getting his 'official' first pokemon today. Despite already having a pokemon, Silver was considered a pet since he waited another year before going on a journey.

Since he lived in Petalburg (He went to Rustboro for school because it had the best trainers program), he would be getting a pokemon from Norman. Most towns don't have a pokemon professor to give out the rare starter pokemon, so they rely on nearby gym leaders to give out the starter pokemon for their city and the neighboring towns.

Most gym leaders just catch starters from routes around their city or give away extra pokemon that they bred. Trainers can cast votes for a popular pokemon- usually a pokemon with egg moves or one that's a higher level than the others so they get a head start. Since Norman ran a normal gym there would most likely be normal types.

Robby sighed. Not that he had anything against normal types, but he had really wanted a rock type so he could do something against fire types. And Silver was the best normal type he could ever wish for.

Rob finished up his normal routine and headed outside, releasing Silver as he did so. Ever since the first week of non-stop vacuuming, the youngster's parents had only allowed the eevee outside his pokeball when he was outside. Silver looked up with a gleam in his abnormal red eyes before following Rob silently as they walked to the petalburg gym.

There was quite a crowd there, but not nearly as many as what he had expected. He heard that ever since the 'incident,' it was a lot harder to get into the accelerated program, so there were hardly people younger than he was.

Young boys chatted with each other, pushing their friends out of the line that had begun to form outside the gym doors. Several girls complained if they were bumped into by a boy. Older groups of friends were closer to the back of the line, clustered together, exchanging gossip.

Rob felt as though he was the only one here alone.

"At least I still have you, bud." Reaching a hand down, he tousled Silver's fur before returning the rare Eevee to his pokeball.

Approaching the line felt like walking into a new world. Maybe, maybe he could make friends, human friends. _No, I have to stay focused. I'm not here to make friends_. The line grew and he quickly took his own spot in line so he could get a good seat in the introduction of the pokemon.

There were two pokeleague employees stationed by the doors to prevent anyone from getting in before the correct time. The one on the right looked down at his Devon-watch, before nodding to the other one. She adjusted her hat, before getting out a keycard. Quickly swiping it through the card reader, she took one side of the double doors while the man took the other. Slowly they opened the doors, essentially opening the floodgates where the water is people instead of, well, water.

The more excited kids tried to push their way to the front of the line, while the more relaxed teens had to pick up the pace in order to not lose their spots. To put it simply, what was supposed to be a smaller trickle of people entering at a time, ended up being a stampede.

Supposedly this happens every year. One would think that they would do something to better prepare for the flood of people, but there really wasn't much they could do, or really would do.

The lights in the gym were dimmed. There were ushers guiding people to various seats, reminding Robby vaguely of a pokemon contest before it started. He never really liked them, but he had the chance to go to one for. . . for one of Laura's birthday parties.

Robby's teeth grit as he remembered how Laura's case had been practically abandoned after only six months of investigation. It wasn't fair that she was abandoned so easily like that. The League members looking into it had given some stupid excuse like all their leads were lost. _They never really cared about her in the first place. It's not like the kidnapping of an unimportant school girl and her pokemon matters to them. I doubt any of their leads were good anyway._

The thought halted any other pleasant thoughts he might have had and put a frown on his countenance. His hand reached down to the pokeball on his belt and he stroked the round, metallic surface.

The stands were filling up now, and the once quiet murmur had gotten louder, grown to a rumble. It had grown warmer in the gym, though it wasn't anything the air conditioning couldn't handle yet. The lights were still dimmed, until, rather suddenly, they turned off completely.

Most of the talking had immediately stopped, though soft hushes echoed out to shush those who were a little slow on the uptake.

A spotlight turned on and shined brightly upon a solo figure standing in the middle of the stage. He was tall with sharp eyes. He was the newest gym leader, Norman Senri. Whispers of excitement erupted, but were just as quickly hushed. This was it. The opening ceremony.

"Welcome." His voice echoed out. It sounded stern and commanding, but rather plain. It wasn't a deep bass nor particularly falsetto. "Welcome to the world of Pokemon."

It was the same cheesy one liner that was spoken in the all opening ceremonies for new trainers, most of the time it was flamboyantly spoken. But Norman spoke it so casually, most of the audience were uncertain if he was finished speaking, or if they should cheer. A moment later, a few brave souls started cheering, leading to the whole crowd roaring in approval.

It died down a few seconds later when the gym leader cleared his throat to speak again. "Most of you here know me, but for those who don't, my name is Norman and I'm the Petalburg gym leader. However, all you need to know about is that right now I am your door. Your door to an adventure. To a partner. To freedom. To your future."

There was a pause, and it stayed silent (people were too anxious to hear what he said next), before he continued. "You will all face some sort of trial in your journey, whatever that may be. You may want to quit. But know that from here on out, every single one of you who leaves with a pokemon will leave with someone to share your struggles with. And now, I will show you the potential candidates for your future."

That statement caused a cheer to burst from the audience, filling the gym area with excited whoops and whistles.

Robby leaned back. He heard last year they had planned on putting a spotlight on every single pokemon as they came into the gym- like some sort of graduation ceremony, but there were way too many people to introduce every single one of them. There is still way too many people for that strategy to work, so Norman had instead posted on his website all of the different pokemon they had. It had each pokemon's basic information including level(4 or 5), moves, and gender.

When he checked the website, he hadn't expected any one of them to jump out at him. But he immediately decided which one was perfect for him.

The main lights in the gym flashed into existence, flooding into Rob's retna's. Then the pokemon came. They flooded through the doorways onto the main field, standing in groups with other pokemon of their same species.

There were Skitty, Taillow, Zigzagoon, Wingull, Wurmple. A group of Slakoth had flopped down- apparently one of them had a rare egg move. There were only three solitary pokemon: a ralts, a shroomish, and a baltoy.

Shroomish is a rare find in the Petalburg woods, and their evolution was desirable. People often don't account for its four-times weakness to flying types once it does evolve. It was a weakness that could be overcome if people payed attention to their team's typing, but people often didn't, so they would be stuck a Winona's gym, if they even made it past Flannery.

Ralts are rare, cute, and had a ton of potential. They were a psychic fairy type, and had two separate final evolutions- one was beautiful while the other was cool. It didn't have the problem Shroomish had with weaknesses, since it was only weak against ghost, poison, and steel.

Both pokemon are highly well liked and Rob had already heard murmurs of excitement as friends and family pointed the rare pokemon out to each other.

Baltoy aren't cute or cool or pretty. They aren't particularly rare -they can be found on route 111- and they don't have good attacking stats, which is prefered by younger trainers who actually know what a stat is. They are weak against a lot of types to: bug, grass, ice, water, ghost, and dark. They are immune to ground type moves, electric types, and they resist fighting, poison, psychic, and rock.

It was a perfect starter for Robby. Ground types are super effective against fire, which was just what he needed. All he needed to do was get in line, if there was a line, and hoped for the best.

. . .

There was no line. The longest line was behind the ralts. Second was behind the slakoth with the egg move. Then Shroomish. A few people, girls, had started a line for the various Skitty. There were also a few bug maniacs standing by the Wurmple.

But Robby was all alone by baltoy. It was hovering, spinning in the air, before it would touch the ground and float back up. Baltoy always spin, no one really knows why, but some people theorize it is the same reason why spoink don't stop bouncing. If they do, they die. Which is bullcrap, as spoink bounce to stimulate their heart, and there is no way spinning helps do that.

Rob shaked the thoughts from his head, once more observing the baltoy. How is he supposed to know that he got the pokemon's attention if he doesn't stop jumping or spinning?

"Hey, baltoy," Robby spoke. It didn't stop spinning, but it did stop jumping, now balancing on that single leg of its.

"Bal-oy?"

"My name's Robby, and I was wondering if you would accept me as your trainer." The baltoy did a movement that was far too slow to be a nod, but more equivalent to looking the school boy over.

"Baltoy-Bal." Then, much to Rob's confusion, the clay doll Pokemon jumped and spun over right above his head. Hovering and spinning, but not touching down. Which Rob was very grateful for since he had left his hat at home and that foot looked rather pointy. Also he wasn't sure if his neck could handle an extra fifty-ish pounds.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes."

It wasn't long till a League employee noticed the predicament. "Well, since baltoy seems to like you so much, and there doesn't seem to be anyone else in line for it, why don't I just go and fetch the paperwork?" She then left, leaving the schoolboy to stand there with baltoy hovering over him.

"I should probably give you a name."

"Baltoy."

"How 'bout Bal?"

" . . ."

"Toy?"

". . ."

This went on for a while. Robby knew he wasn't good at the whole naming thing. But it never really occurred to him how bad he was until baltoy rejected his best idea:

"What do ya mean you don't like Bart?!"

". . ."

"I'll have you know Bart is a wonderful name."

". . ."

"Whatever."

Apparently it took a long time to get paperwork, because baltoy had already rejected fifteen names. In fact, it was just as the employee was returning that baltoy had finally accepted a name.

"Does Balo sound good?"

"Baltoy. . . Ba-l-o. Balo."

The rustling of papers interrupted whatever Rob's response would have been to success. Whirling, he was met with the League employee from before. She was holding a clipboard with a pen attached along with a thin manilla folder containing Balo's papers. "I got the papers for you, all you need to do now is sign here and go over to the man at the front desk for your starter supply set, which contains three potions, five pokeballs, and a town map."

"There isn't a Pokedex provided?"

"No, the Pokedex is only handed out by Professor Birch. They are expensive to make, after all." The League employee sighed, wiping a stray blonde lock from her forehead. "We do have a QR code that lets you download a pokedex app on your phone or Devon-watch for free. It isn't nearly as good as the ones the Professor hands out, but it is helpful. You can also ask the front desk for the code, if you're interested."

"Thanks, I'll do that."

"And here's baltoy's pokeball." She pulled out the red and white sphere; it had one mark on it: a brown circle with six white circles inside, stacked up in a pyramid formation. It was the symbol for ground type. The League employee handed it to Rob, who took it and put it on his belt, right by the shrunken luxury ball.

Thanking her, Robby headed toward the direction of the front desk, pulling out Balo's paperwork as he did so.

Pokemon: Baltoy

Level: 5

Gender: Genderless

Nature: Serious

Moves: confusion, harden, rapid spin

Balo definitely needed to catch up to Silver in terms of levels, but that made sense since Rob had caught Silver about a year and a half ago. Putting the papers back into their folder, Rob looked up to see that he had made it to the front desk. There were three people working at it, and there was a short line for each of them. A few people with Zigzagoon and Taillow had beat him to it, but Robby liked to think he was patient enough to wait in a line.

He did get a few strange looks, probably because he had a baltoy floating over his head, but he didn't have to wait long to be called over by a male League employee behind the desk.

"Hello," He paused, glancing up to Balo, "it's good to see that baltoy found a trainer."

"Bal-o."

"Erm, yes. Right." The man disappeared behind the counter before popping back up with a small box. "This box has three potions, five pokeballs, and one Town Map of the Hoenn region. We don't have a Pokedex, but we do have a-"

"A QR code. Yeah, I know, someone told me." The man chuckled before reaching down to grab a laminated sheet with directions on it. Sliding across the table, the man continued, "Now you do need to create an account, but it is completely free. You probably know that it isn't as reliable as a real pokedex, but you can still check your pokemon's levels, natures, moves, and download basic knowledge of the pokemon you've seen. Just follow the directions on the sheet and you should be just fine."

Thanking the League employee, Rob took the code, before moving down the desk to show that there was an open spot. Folding back his sleeve to reveal his Devon-watch, he quickly scanned the QR code before clicking the link it led to. Quickly creating his account and saving it to his watch, he saw two menus: Pokemon he has seen and Pokemon he has caught.

Robby slid the sheet back to the League employee, before exiting the gym. Balo was no longer hovering over his head, but was instead doing the jump, spin, hover thing on the ground beside him. Going to the Pokemon he has caught menu, Rob pressed the scan button and pointed it at the baltoy. A green laser grid shined on it and the screen showed a processing bar. It flashed blue and a cheery voice chimed out 'processing complete, information on baltoy downloaded.'

A picture of Balo appeared and displayed his level, moves, and nature. Underneath those it showed its weight (47 lbs), height (1'08"), and typing (ground and psychic). Underneath that was a basic description:

_Baltoy were discovered in ancient ruins. While moving, they constantly spin. Even when they are asleep, they stand on one foot. Baltoy evolve into Claydol._

With a faint smile, Rob was on the move, unclipping the luxury ball from his belt. With two clicks of the center button, Silver appeared in a flash of white light.

Al shook before peering up at the baltoy. _So they always spin, huh?_ Might as well introduce himself. "Hi, my name's Silver. Have you been given a name yet?"

"Greetings, Silver. I have been given the name Balo, after rejecting fifteen terrible ones that Trainer Robby had attempted to give me."

Balo had a rather monotone voice, but it wasn't nearly as bad as that one time he had ran into a magnemite. At least the tone was soft and not screechy. "Wow, I knew Robby was bad at name giving, but I didn't know he was this bad."

"Trainer Robby is not bad at name giving. Simply inadequate."

Al snorted at the comment. Whether it was supposed to be a joke or not was lost on him, but he decided to consider it one. Suddenly, a green light flashed in Silver's eye, prompting him to shut it.

"Processing complete. Information on EEVEE downloaded. It appears your EEVEE has a unique color pigmentation. Would you like to save its profile picture?"

Rob spoke. "Yes."

"Image downloaded."

Silver looked over to Balo. "What was that?"

"It appeared to have been the Pokedex app that Trainer Robby had downloaded."

"Oh." Looking up to Robby, Al noticed a small smile on his face. Ever since the 'incident' it seemed to be getting rarer to see. Maybe this could become more than a plan to avenge.

Maybe this could help him, be good for him. Or it could end up hurting him even more.

Al could only hope for the best and make the best out of the worst.

**Notes:**

**All I can say is please review. Maybe your thoughts on what Ed should evolve into.**

**Also, the starter selection was inspired from _Uprising_ another Pokemon fanfic by A Wordsmith.**

**Next chapter we have some character introductions.**


	5. Chapter 4

**AN: I'm all out of pre written chapters!**

**HOORAY!**

**. . .**

**That's the problem, the next chapter might take longer to get published, but not too long. I think.**

**Some new people get introduced here, you're probably familiar with them.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon or FMA.**

**See the end for more notes.**

Chapter 4: Making Connections

Training Balo wasn't too challenging when the pokemon on the routes surrounding Petalburg were fairly low level. In fact, Rob didn't even have to employ the classic 'put the weakest pokemon in front so they can get experience before switching out to a stronger one' strategy.

Occasionally a bug type trainer would challenge them. Since Balo was weak to bug, Robby would switch out. It wouldn't be nearly as efficient if the team was forced to go back to the Pokemon Center everytime they had a battle. As it was already, they returned after, approximately, every five battles for a brief rest.

It was a nice day, there were clouds rolling in from the east, but the sun was still shining upon the land below, making it an ideal training day. Afterall, tomorrow wouldn't be nearly as nice.

"Now, rapid spin!" Robby shouted. Balo hovered, before spinning as fast as a top. Shooting forward, the baltoy rammed into the low leveled taillow, fainting it in that last hit. It hopped into the air, spinning triumphantly. "Great job, Balo."

There was a sudden buzz from the young pokemon trainer's watch. Looking down, he saw it was a notification from his pokedex app.

"Aw, sweet! You leveled up. And learned a new move: mud slap." Tapping on the move description, Robby frowned. "It says here it only has a power of 20, but it also lowers the accuracy. So that's better than sand attack."

Balo floated (Pun intended), "Hah. Trainer Robby has declared that I am greater than you."

Silver gave a small smile, before a small shake of his head. "Congratulations, you must feel very accomplished."

"I am." Walking over, the silver eevee gave a flick of his tail to the starter, who continued to spin obliviously.

"Good, because you need to work as hard as possible in order to catch up-"

A youthful voice interrupted Silver's tease. "Oh," he gasped, "wow, a silver eevee! That has to be one of those rare shinies Dad told me about!" It was another trainer. He emerged from the foliage to the right, gaining the attention of Robby.

The boy wore a strange white hat that covered up his hair with a strange red pokeball emblem on the elastic part of the beanie-like-hat. His tight jacket was black and red and he wore some sort of stylish gray shorts. A light green single strap backpack was slung on his shoulder. He had brown eyes and his face was filled with concealed awe.

"Hey! You stay away from my pokemon!" Rob's shout interrupted the trance like state the fellow trainer seemed to have entered at the site of such a rare pokemon. Robby growled, stalking closer.

At the appearance of a new trainer, the boy scowled. "Don't you go assuming things about me. With that Baltoy right there, I'm not dumb enough to even think that those Pokemon weren't someone else's. And I'm not a Pokemon thief!"

The attitude was a complete 180 from how he had acted when he was alone, it almost gave Silver whiplash. However, him being an expert in strange people, it only managed to mildly faze him. It did severely confuse Balo though; whether or not that was good thing was not up to the retired alchemist.

"Yeah? Then why are you getting so defensive!"

"Maybe it's because some imbecil is shouting at me!"

"Oh yeah? I'll show you imbecil!" He looked over at Balo with a beckoning gesture. "C'mon, this guy's asking for it!"

Pausing briefly in twirling, the baltoy managed to somehow send a pleading look to Silver, who sweatdropped.

"And I'm not gonna get it! Tiko, let's show this fool!" Suddenly a green figure emerged from the grass.

_Treecko, the Wild Gecko Pokemon. A grass type. Treecko has small hooks on the bottom of its feet that enable it to scale vertical walls. This Pokémon attacks by slamming foes with its thick tail. Treecko is the first evolution in the Sceptile line._

Robby's brown furrowed once he realised he was at a type disadvantage. "Figures you're from Littleroot."

"That isn't what's important right now."

"Well, if we're battling, you should introduce yourself."

"Fine," The boy crossed his arms, assuming a standoffish position, "My name's Brendan. And it'd be customary if you gave me your name too."

"Rob." They shook hands in a stiff, frustrated manner, each trying to squeeze the others hand harder, in a petty form of strength. Silver couldn't help but droop at the unneeded contention going on between the two. Tiko seemed to have the same idea.

Approaching the eevee, the gecko rubbed the back of his head. "Hi, name's Tiko. Sorry 'bout Brendan; I've only been with him for a day and the best thing I can tell you is he is definitely socially awkward."

Al shot him a confused look. "What? If anything, he looks a bit defensive. . ."

"That's one way to say it, but. . ." Tiko paused, shaking his head, "I don't really know how I know this, he's defensive because he doesn't like it when people judge him. I don't think he really knows how to handle it since. . ." the treecko cut himself off.

Silver nodded. "No, I understand what you mean. I've, uh, had some experience with someone who's at least a little defensive, though definitely for different reasons." His thoughts flashed back to how Ed had always overreacted to even a hint of being called short.

Balo observed the exchange in silence. Both trainers were still exchanging insults, though the reasons why puzzled him. Especially Trainer Robby's response to the 'imbecile' remark. The 'I'll show you imbecile' was not a proper response to that form of mockery. Perhaps Trainer Robby was unaware of the true meaning of imbecile. He needed to expand his vocabulary if that was so.

Tiko's explanation of his trainer's behaviour certainly made sense, unlike the words being thrown around in the trainers' argument. Balo sighed, the world blurring in a kaleidoscope of color. Spinning was truly a miraculous form of meditation. Sadly the zoning out would not last as there was a heated argument going on.

"Let's get this thing started." It was a simple statement but enough to end any distractions and build up tension.

"Balo, you're up." The baltoy mention spun forward gently.

"Tiko." The green reptilian took a step forward.

"No hard feelings?"

"A pokemon battle is for fun; I am willingly participating. I will not hold anything within reason against you."

"Start."

"Balo, use mud slap!" the baltoy spun, unearthing soft mud from beneath the topsoil, sending it flying at the opponent, who swiftly dodged.

"Tiko, absorb." Reptilian eyes narrowed, small green orbs seemed to leave Balo's body, before they were absorbed by the treecko. It was a weak grass type move, but it also restored energy by sapping it from their opponent.

"Balo!" Robby's teeth clenched. Just from one hit the clay doll Pokemon already seemed to have a lot less energy than before, wobbling in the air. "Shake it off and use rapid spin!" Balo nodded before twirling at high speeds.

Spinning forward, he rammed into Tiko, who hadn't had enough of an opportunity to dodge.

"Grab it!" The treecko braced himself on the ground, digging his small claws into the body of Balo, halting its spinning entirely. Robby gasped, shocked. "Drain it dry!"

With all of Balo's mobility gone, he couldn't dodge what would happen next. Slowly, green energy escaped it, healing Tiko in return. More and more came, and with each one, the treecko seemed more and more energized.

"Use confusion!" Was Rob's desperate plea. However, Balo had already fainted. Taking out the ground type's pokeball, he enlarged it, returning the baltoy to it.

Walking up to his opponent, who was in the middle of congratulating Tiko, he stuck out his hand. Brendan stood up, glancing at the hand uncertainly. Hesitantly, he took it and shook it twice.

"Thanks for the match. And," Robby paused, rubbing the back of his head, "sorry for jumping to conclusions."

Brendan smiled. It wasn't particularly bright, instead small but genuine. The prodigy nodded. "I should apologize for, uh-"

"Brendan!" A newcomer burst through the foliage. She wore a red bandana and had light brown bangs that framed her face. Her red tank top had small black patterns and she wore white shorts. A yellow and green fanny pack added a bit more color to her outfit. "Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you!"

She looked over and spotted Rob, allowing him to see the glare on her face. "Did ya get into another fight?"

What ever dignity Brendan might have had was sweep from beneath his feet. "M-may! Uh, I'm so sorry!" He turned to face her, hands working overtime trying to help him come up with an excuse, until he bowed.

"I don't need any of your terrible excuses! If you get into trouble this early in the journey, ya pops is gonna kill me."

"B-b-but-"

"But what?!" May glared. "I'm not gonna be with you for your whole journey; you have to be less rash." Softening, she glanced over to Robby. "Anyway, who's this?"

"I'm Rob." Robby pointed to himself, before glancing over to Silver, who had previously been taking in the scenery. "That's Silver."

May finally noticed the strangely colored eevee. "That's one pretty eevee. It isn't shiny, either." That earned her two bewildered glances from the boys. "What? Shiny eevee kinda look like a bleached version of regular eevee. They aren't entirely white, only at the tail and neck fluff, and they have a tint of color in their gray. Also, they have dark gray eyes, not red."

By now she had a smile on her face, but when she looked at the gobsmacked faces of the other two, the frown returned. "What?"

It was Brendan who spoke up. "Nothing, I just didn't expect you to even know what a shiny eevee looked like."

"It's called the internet."

That shut them up.

The internet was something that took Al a while to figure out. For three months he was absolutely clueless as to what it was, but eventually he managed to understand it was some sort of library. Of course, he figured out that Rob's watch somehow connected to the internet and he was able to research on a few of the questions he had.

He had stumbled across cat pokemon videos, but didn't appreciate them nearly as much as he would have, considering he had occasionally been in those situations himself.

He also had to figure out how to clear the history a few days in when the first thing that came up in the search bar was 'The proper social conduct for an eevee.'

Looking around, Silver spotted a patch of blue behind a bush. "Hey, you can come out."

". . ." The blue blob shifted and a streak of orange was seen.

"Uh. . ." Silver moved closer, trying to get a better view of the pokemon, who was most definitely the girl's. "Hello?"

Al batted away a branch, moving closer to the newcomer.

_Mudkip, the Mud fish Pokemon. The fin on Mudkip's head acts as highly sensitive radar. Using this fin to sense movements of water and air, this Pokémon can determine what is taking place around it without using its eyes. Mudkip is a water type and is a part of the Swampart line._

Mudkip's eyes were closed and she seemed to be laying down. Maybe she's sensing the vibrations around her with her fins. Silver moved closer, but suddenly heard a sound.

"Z. . . z. . . z"

Silver fell over. Retreating from the sleeping figure, he bumped into a log. Leaves rustled and suddenly a strange, soft thing fell right on his head. Gasping, he shook it off, discovering it was a wurmple. A wild wurmple.

The bug glared and shot a thread of string at the eevee, who dodged. "I'm so sorry!"

"I'm not letting you get out of trouble with just an apology!" Wurmple used string shot once more, but it was dodged once more. This got the attention of the three trainers.

Robby grinned. "Alright, Silver use-" He was interrupted by a hand to his face.

"Oh no you don't!" May declared. "I'm gonna catch this one. Muma!" The asleep mudkip was suddenly wide awake, dashing to her side.

"Use water gun." Nodding, she opened her mouth and a high pressured water stream erupted from it. The water hit the wurmple directly, who then slammed into the tree he had just fell from.

"Pokeball, go!" Enlarging an empty pokeball, May threw it at the downed bug, and it snapped open, absorbing the wurmple in with a red light. Closing it fell to the ground, shaking once, twice, three times, before it clicked to confirm the capture. "Great!"

Smiling she pumped a fist before picking up the pokeball. "We should go back to the pokecenter. Both of your pokemon are weakened and I need to heal Zore."

"You already named him?!" Robby burst out.

"Yes," She giggled. "Now let's go."

. . .

The trip to the Pokecenter was uneventful, relatively speaking.

The small group of acquaintances had handed their injured Pokemon over to the nurse, before moving to sit down on a waiting bench.

"So, uh," Robby started, trying to break the awkward silence the triplet had fallen into, "any reason why you guys are going on your journeys?"

May glanced over to Brendan, who remained silent, albeit tense. She seemed to be considering something, before coming to a conclusion. "I want to be the best."

That made Rob splutter incredulously. "The best? Kinda a lofty goal, isn't it?"

Brendan muttered something with a snort, before speaking up. "If you think I defeated you quickly, I doubt you want to see how fast she would defeat you. Probably without any of her Pokemon taking any damage."

Robby glared. "You only defeated one of my Pokemon, I doubt either of you can defeat Silver." That was met with blank looks.

The eevee in question was currently curled on the bench next to Robby, taking a quick snooze. Silver hadn't been battling so he didn't exactly need to be healed.

"I've had him for a year or so," Rob elaborated, earning just one head nod.

A door opened, filling the lull in the conversation. A nurse peeked her head out, scanning the crowd. Her eyes landed on the threesome and she fully emerged from behind the door that apparently led to the medical wing. The nurse began approaching them, two pokeballs in her hand.

"Hello," She was addressing May, "Are you. . . May Senri?" When the girl in question nodded, the nurse gave a small smile. "Your Pokemon are all healed up! We thank you for your patronage." With a bow, she walked away.

May smirked. "Ready to meet my newest Pokemon?" She didn't wait for a response, and released both Pokemon in a flash of white light.

Muma, the mudkip, blinked lazily. She looked like she was hardly functioning, but managed to do a once over at the wurmple who sat next to her. The bug in question had a rather nervous expression on his bugey face.

May bent down, placing her hands on her knees. She shot a bright smile at the wurmple who seemed to calm down slightly. However, he seemed to glance uneasily at Mudkip, almost as if he was expecting to get attacked suddenly by the passive pokemon. Muma's fin twitched, Zore jumping a rather impressive height for being a bug known not to jump.

He quickly scampered up an unsuspecting May's arm, though she didn't seem to mind. Instead she cooed, "Awww, you don't have to be afraid of Muma. . ."

And with a few strokes, the tense bug pokemon slid off her shoulder like some sort of limp noodle, flopping down onto the floor. Al didn't know if bugs could purr or not, but Zore certainly seemed to be trying.

Silver, who had blearily woken up, only ended up blinking at the strange interaction. He had expected some sort of struggle to bond with a wild pokemon, but May made it seem so effortless. The human-turned-Eevee (Or would he be a human-turned-suit-of-armor-turned-eevee?) hadn't exactly seen many newly caught pokemon, so maybe it was a normal thing to see a human and pokemon bond so quickly.

Al glanced over to the dumbstruck expressions on Rob's and Brendan's faces. Then again, it could just be May, Silver reevaluated.

The girl in question proceeded to scoop up the limp bug pokemon, cradling him in her arms. Muma gave a yawn, before standing up on her stubby little legs. Glancing up at her trainer, the mudkip murmured something softly, so softly that it didn't quite reach Al's giant, bunny-esque ears.

May stood up, Zore still in her arms, turning to the rest of the group. "I'm leaving."

"What! You're going already?" The protest came from Brendan's mouth, and he flinched directly afterwards. Almost as if he didn't want to say that outloud.

"Oh, please," May scoffed, "you don't need me to take care of you. You're the one who was so determined to catch all the pokemon. Besides, if I stick with you, you'll hold me up."

This was where Robby intervened. "You should at least stay the night at the Pokecenter; it's supposed to rain tonight."

"I have an umbrella and a raincoat. Plus, Muma likes the rain." There was a determination in her eyes, one that Al was very familiar with. It seemed to be the the same type of determination that often was reflected in his older brother's eyes.

Brendan sighed. "Fine. You're right about me holding you up, I'll probably double back on this route a couple times to make sure I caught every different pokemon on it, anyway." May beamed, before turning around and heading towards the door.

"Bye!" She cried out, Brendan and Rob echoing the sentiment. Then, she was gone.

Robby slumped in his seat. "She left in a hurry."

"Yeah,"Brendan murmured, shouldering his bag. Another nurse came in, the same one as before.

She approached the remainder of the group. "You must be. . . Rob Davis and Brendan Birch?"

Brendan froze at that, glancing over at Rob as if to judge his reaction. The youngster simply accepted the pokeball containing Balo.

"You are Brendan Birch, right?" The boy in question managed to nod, stuck within whatever internal crisis he was having, and took Tiko's pokeball numbly.

Rob turned to Brendan, who was staring of into space, rather pale, hands shaking. "Look," Rob started, "I don't care if you are the son of some famous Professor. All that does is explain why you're stuck up."

That managed to get a response from him. "I am not stuck up-"

"Whatever. But you can't deny you're a nerd." Rob waved him off, much to the other boy's protests. "I'm gonna check out a room. You can come over to play cards or something."

When Rob walked off, he could feel the other boys eyes follow him until he left the main lobby.

. . .

Once Robby reached his room, he released Balo in a flash of silver white light. It had already begun raining, the occasional flash of lightning and roar of thunder accompanied the water as it pelted the roof of the Pokecenter.

"So," Rob was the first to break the comfortable silence, "do you know how to play Scum?" Robby pulled out two decks of cards, or some sort of emphasis on his words.

Al grinned. It seemed sweet, maybe cute, on his eevee face, but Rob felt a shiver run down his spine. The trainer reflected how, somehow, Silver excelled at this game. He and his family sometimes played it outside, mostly so Silver could play along.

They were uncertain if the eevee would even understand how to play cards, but they were eager to try. That day they created a card playing master.

Or monster, take your pick.

Balo shook its head and Robby opened his mouth to explain the game. Only for a knock to sound at the door, interrupting him before he even started.

Turns out Brendan decided to take the offer of cards.

. . .

The group ended staying up far later than they should've, considering that they're going to be walking all day the next day and that they are preteens.

But when you are playing Scum under the rule of a particularly cruel king (*Cough* Silver *Cough*), sometimes you have to combine forces to overthrow the king. And when that attempt doesn't work, you have to try again.

The next one didn't either. Or any of them, really. Silver ended up staying the king, with Balo as queen. Brendan became the merchant, a nice middle class. But the bottom of the stack ended up being Tiko, a peasant, and Robby, a scum (truly the lowest of the low).

The only question was how did Al hold his cards if he didn't have opposable thumbs?

That is something no one will know. Not even Al.

**Notes:**

**That's right, it's game territory, not anime. Or manga, as much as I love the Ruby and Sapphire Adventure.**

**If you were looking forward to see Ash and friends, sorry to disappoint. I haven't watched the Hoenn anime for a long time, so it wouldn't exactly be accurate. And, yes, the protagonist and the rival are both going to be OP. When compared to an only ok trainer like Robby (no matter if he has Al as a Pokemon or some tragic backstory), they would destroy him since I consider them prodigies.**

**Also, don't forget to tell me what you think Ed should evolve into. How's Ed doing, anyway?**

**Maybe you'll find out next chapter?**

**So with that as motivation (if that counts as motivation), please review!**


	6. Chapter 5

**AN: This is a longer chapter, about 4,760 words, and it could have been longer. I think I'm getting better at the whole description thing, but it could have just been me getting carried away.**

**Oh well.**

**Disclaimer: I don't have to do this every chapter, right? Well it's too late now, since I already gave a disclaimer for every chapter before this one. And it gives the author's note in the beginning a point. . .**

**I don't own Pokemon or Fullmetal Alchemist. **

Chapter 5: A Fishy Situation

Al yawned, stretched, and shook himself. Blinking, he realized with belated joy that he wasn't in his pokeball. That's right, he recalled, I don't have to stay in that thing anymore. Really the only reason he was forced to in the first place was that Robby's parents didn't want to vacuum his very visible silver fur from the carpet every day.

Now he wasn't restrained in his pokeball inside anymore.

Glancing around the small hotel room, comprised of a small desk, dresser, and a single bed, Al spotted the motionless figure of Balo. The clay doll was standing straight up, not on its side or anything. The alchemist-turned-eevee couldn't even tell if Balo was awake, sleeping, or dead.

It was slightly unnerving, but Al figured the ground type was sleeping, since he wasn't spinning. Then again, since he had spent time as expressionless armour, maybe he understood because he could relate, as an expressionless kindred spirit.

Stretching once more, Silver glanced at the alarm clock. 6:34. Why am I up this early? Gazing at the lump hidden under the messy covers, he wondered if he should wake up Robby, briefly remembering the trainer wanted to leave early.

Waking him up would be cruel, considering Rob wasn't exactly a morning person. Robby had also confessed he wanted to leave before Brendan, who didn't seem to have similar reservations when it came to the early hours of the morning, so the cruelty would be his own trainers orders.

The joke might bring enough laughter to soothe the empty nook that had settled in his heart for the coming day.

Might as well wake Balo up first. Trotting over to the clay doll pokemon, Silver gently shook him, crooning, "Wake up. C'mon, It's time to get up."

The response is immediate, as Balo suddenly spins like a top. Not exactly wanting to get hit by the ground type's flailing 'arms,' Silver jumped back. As abruptly as it began, the twirling stopped.

"Good morning," was Balo's response to Silver's wide eyes, "I hope you had a fair night's sleep."

"Oh, uh, good morning to you as well." Al was still processing what appeared to be a sleep driven rapid spin attack (was Balo just stretching?). Making a mental note to be careful when waking up Balo next time, Silver tentatively started once more, "Did you have a good sleep, too?"

"It will be adequate to get me through the day." The response was curt, and sounded as if Balo was preparing to go fight a war. Was the baltoy always this uptight?

Silver stayed silent, not exactly knowing how to handle the serious pokemon. Changing the topic would do. "I haven't woken up Rob, yet. He likes to sleep in, but he told me to wake him up early . . ." Al trailed off, not exactly knowing what to say.

"You require me to assist, don't you?"

"Yeah." Al usually wasn't one to fumble with words, but there was hardly a hint of emotion in the genderless pokemon's voice, it was rather challenging to read the situation and predict reactions. It didn't exactly help that Balo was akin to a complete stranger.

Floating upwards, Balo's runes glowed softly. A soft blue glow enveloped the sheets and they were lifted weakly off the bed, dropping to the floor once they hovered over it. Robby shivered slightly, curling in on himself, but remained fast asleep.

That left Al confused, though only slightly. "Balo, since when could you use confusion to lift things?"

Shaking, Balo sighed. "I can't. That was simply my psychic powers. They aren't strong enough to be considered a move, but it is a natural talent that resides in all psychic type pokemon. I, however, am also a ground type, so mine is weaker than others and has less potential to develop into the various moves."

"Hmmm." It wasn't something that Silver had read about online before, but maybe he just needed to expand his own resources.

"There are more options than removing covers. They include: pain, shocking him awake (using various methods), and excessive noise. Which one should we use first?"

Something about that statement must have reminded Al of his brother because he managed to grin mischievously, all the while the chunk of his missing heart seemed to be growing larger.

. . .

Fading. Darkness swirling, folding and mixing with dim light to create an intricate pattern, an image that faded as swiftly as it came, only to be replaced by a different pattern. Dreams were a tricky thing, challenging to navigate, and equally hard to interpret, if someone even remembers them once they wake up.

Golden eyes opened in a flash, only to close once the light flooded into his retinas and burned them. Despite being rather dim, the lights were still overwhelming when compared to the peaceful oblivion of sleep he was accustomed to.

His bunny-esque ears were filled with static and his tongue was a miserable combination of dry and heavy in his mouth. Each limb felt as if it were a dead-weight and each were numb, not quite like a prickly sensation, but more akin to being frozen. Then a moment later, all his aches, pains, and soreness returned, a prime example of a delayed reaction.

Waking up after a fight was a familiar feeling, but that doesn't mean it was a welcome one.

Edward opened his eyes once again, more slowly this time, staring at the unfamiliar wall in front of him. His guard rose along with his hackles. The golden eevee's small heartbeat sped up, thumping loudly in his chest, a sure reaction of the suppressed panic running rampant through his veins.

Deep breaths, Ed thought, chiding himself, I have to get out of here, not fall victim to a stupid panic attack. Being kidnapped was less familiar territory for the elder Elric brother, but that didn't mean he had zero experience with being on the wrong side of a thievery. And by wrong side he means being the one inside the bag.

It didn't help that he was famous (a very loose description of the word) and some people got the bright idea that they would get loaded if they kidnapped the Fullmetal Alchemist, the youngest state alchemist, and held him for ransom. The stupid ones didn't get very far, neither did the ones who underestimated him. When he had been kidnapped, he could escape the more incompetent ones, and he could pay the ransom fee for the arguably more competent ones.

But Edward wasn't the Fullmetal Alchemist anymore. He wasn't 'famous,' and he doubted Laura and her family had enough money to pay for a ransom.

Laura. Was she okay? Last time Griffin saw her, he had. . .

_A flash of blue, the fire seemingly more cold that hot, but still turning nearby metal cherry red._

_Lightning flashes, crackling through the air briefly, the blue more familiar than the ghostly flames._

He had protected her from a powerful flamethrower, using Alchemy. Alchemy that he was certain had been taken away from him and Al once they were in this new world, in these new bodies. After several experiments, every single one of them failing, they had figured Alchemy was lost when they obtained the new bodies, perhaps in exchange for their newfound powers called moves.

But Ed had used it, and it was definitely different than it was before. It was the same basic principle, transform something into something else following the rules of equivalent exchange, but the execution was. . . different. The first step, Comprehension, seemed to be the same- essentially understanding what you are transmuting.

After that it was, different. Deconstruction is the second step, using energy to break down the substance into a more pliable form, so it can easily be reshaped. Before, Ed would use the natural, ambient energy that was everywhere. Now. . .

He used his own energy, a lot like the energy he used for his moves.

Reconstruction used his own energy to reform the concrete into the dome that he had wanted, which was probably the reason why passed out immediately afterwards.

There was also the fact that he hadn't drawn a circle, or clapped his hands for that matter-

"It appears our guest is awake."

A male voice rang out, startling Ed from his thoughts. He cursed internally. The alchemist hadn't even noticed the man come in. Turning (to the best of his ability with all those stupid chains), Ed managed to face the newcomer, who most likely was his captor.

The man was tall, that was the first thing that the eevee registered. It wasn't just the fact that Edward was hardly a foot tall himself; he was tall, and he was not someone Ed would want to fight if he were a human. The man wasn't exactly buff like Major Armstrong, more lean muscle than anything else, then again, it was hard to tell exactly. His clothes were rather baggy, consisting of a crimson cloak than concealed the majority of the rest of his stature.

No, what screamed dangerous about him was his posture. He was still. His visible face was a blank poker face, but his eyes, his dark eyes held a glint of something strange. Cold, calculating, along with a strange form of. . . Excitement? It was hard to tell.

There was one pokemon by his side. It was humanoid and majorly black, with a few white bows and blue eyes framed by a purple face.

Gothorita, the Manipulative Pokemon. On nights when the stars shine, this Pokémon's psychic power is at its strongest. According to many old tales, it creates friends for itself by controlling sleeping children on starry nights. This pokemon is a psychic type and is the second stage in the line of Gothita.

Edward's hackles spiked up and a shiver ran down his spine, but he managed to mold his face into a fierce scowl, glaring directly into the eyes of his captor. The excitement in the eyes seemed to grow, along with a small bud of amusement. Edward cursed the cute, cuddly features of his eevee body.

The man grinned. It was malevolent and sent a new round of shivers down Ed's spine. "Not very happy to see us, it appears."

He moved closer, Ed growled. "Back off! I'm warning you."

He stopped coming closer, but didn't move backwards either, seemingly pondering something. He spoke up a moment later. "How about you answer some questions from me?"

Scoffing, Edward scoffed, "Yeah, no way. I wouldn't answer questions from you, creep, even if you could understand me."

Gothorita's eyes glinted, making the eevee hastily look away. He wasn't exactly sure how hypnotism worked here, but he definitely wouldn't want to fall victim to it, especially if his information source is right about how Gothorita works.

The man responded, strangely, as if he understood Ed perfectly. "You will with enough persuasion, clever little eevee. I can understand you; Gothorita is here as a translator, with her telepathy abilities."

His thoughts were blinded briefly by being called the most hated word. "Why you. . ."

Growling, Ed launched himself forward,"Who are you calling little-!" The chains stopping him from getting to close cold metal choking off most of his rant.

Eyes glinting, the man was obviously amused by the tick he'd discovered in his captive,

Well At least now I know the Gothorita is here for more than just protection, or . . . my own theory. Ed didn't allow himself to relax, they could resort to hypnotising to get whatever answer they wanted from an eevee.

But that just brought up another question.

"I'm not going to answer any of yours until you answer some of mine." Ed smirked. It would be a downhill battle, since he had a lot of questions, and less information on his opponent, he'd just have to choose his own questions wisely. "Equivalent exchange."

There was a long pause as the man digested the information. He opened his mouth and what came out was a calm, dangerous thing, hissingly quiet and just as deadly as a snake.

"Now why would I do that, little eevee?"

Ed launched himself once again with renewed vigor, jumping up in a useless attempt to hurt the vile man, and was swiftly suppressed by a kick to his belly.

"Silence, pet." The word was dragged out, as if the Man (not a man, more like a monster) knew Ed hated it. "I don't have to play by your rules. You are at my whim, and I have all the cards in my hand."

A pause, filled with the frantic beat of Ed's heart, try has he might to calm the stuttering of it.

"Maybe, instead, if you answer my question, you shall be rewarded. If not. . ."

The Man smiled, truly a cruel thing, "If not, you will be punished."

"Understand? Good. Now, what-"

Anxiety pooled within his stomach. Ed didn't exactly know what type of questions a mad man would ask an eevee, no matter how unique that particular eevee was, and he was prepared for a question that would be an attempt to penetrate his deepest secrets. Or rather some thing he liked to keep a secret, no matter how deep it was.

"-is your name?"

It was a simple question, and not something Ed was expecting at all. It did make sense, though. It's not like the Man knew he had some big secret (several actually), and was probably just testing the eevee's reactions. A sinking feeling penetrated his chest; with his defensiveness earlier, he practically just showed the Man a wrapped present before running away saying 'you can't find it.'

Now all he had to do was find it before Ed escaped. And with his newfound alchemy abilities, escape won't be the problem. The problem will be 'not get caught.' But if Ed tried to escape to soon, he would definitely get caught, and the Man would definitely know he was hiding something; Ed was fairly certain that most eevees can't manipulate matter, after all.

So it was the waiting game then.

Scowling, Ed hissed, "Why would I tell you something that important to me?"

It was true, the alchemist turned eevee had no desire to tell the mad Man any of his names of titles: Ed, Edward, Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist, or even Griffin. The names and their meaning to him are only a slight incentive to not give them to someone he has already decided he hated (it makes perfect sense to hate the person who kidnapped you), but there was also the fact that if he didn't fight now, he would be hiding something even more obvious when it really mattered.

Besides, Ed never liked people who flaunted their power, and the Man reeked arrogance. Ed's very pride was on the line now (it was his unofficial job to infuriate every person in power, afterall).

The Man smiled as if he had expected that type of response. "Well then, punishment it is." Turning a swift 180, he walked straight to the wall, but disappeared in a flash of blue light before he hit it.

Edward was hoping to witness what could have been a solid faceplant in the wall, but remained disappointed nonetheless.

Now all he had to do was wait for the punishment.

He waited.

And waited.

But when the Man came in again, what Edward assumed was the next day, to ask the same question, the game the Man was playing became very clear.

. . .

The sun was shining harshly in the sky, beating down on Robby's neck. He was sure by the time he would finally get in some shade his neck would be sunburnt. It wasn't even that hot outside, temperature wise, but compared to the day prior it was way too hot.

At least he didn't have fur. Silver, on the other hand, was not so lucky. He wasn't exactly short haired, the fur being maybe a medium to long length, depending on the season. Eevees are known for being adaptable, and right now he was adapting to the heat. Meaning Al was leaving a trail of silver fur in his wake.

The road was dusty and Al wished he had some sort of shoes, not that the dirt was burning his paws or anything, but it had managed to work itself in between his paw pads. Not that it was painful or anything, but it was rather annoying, like getting small rocks stuck in a shoe while walking.

Balo floated pleasantly besides Silver, avoiding the problem altogether- not that the clay doll even had to deal with it in the first place, as he didn't have paws or shoes. The baltoy was essentially a clay toy with psychic powers, so Al didn't know if he could even feel the temperature, see the blue sky, or the small beach they were walking by.

A life like that would be even worse than living in a suit of armor, Al thought glumly, but if it never knew what it is missing, since it never had any of the things I did. And still do.

"Silver. I am sensing something is troubling you. May I ask what it is?" Silver swallowed, glancing nervously to the spinning Balo.

"U-Uh, yeah, actually. I do have a question, if you don't mind me asking."

"I do not mind at all."

Tail twitching, Silver wondered briefly if it really was okay, or if he was being insensitive. But he shook his head as his resolve hardened. "I was wondering if you could see. W-well, it's just, you don't exactly have eyes and, now that I think about it, you don't have a mouth either, s-so how do you even speak-?"

Al cut himself off, hoping he hadn't sounded too rude, but knowing the rant had probably made him sound that way, whether he wanted to or not. His heart sank further into his chest once he didn't get a response, thinking that he had just been given the silent treatment-

"How I speak without a mouth is the simpler one to answer." Balo stated, voice inflection rather flat, but that was normal for him. "I simply use my psychic powers to create vibrations in the air. You are fairly clever, so I can assume you know how sound waves work."

Silver nodded,"Yes, vibrations."

"To answer your other question, I can see, but it is a bit more complicated than how I speak. I suppose the way I see would be different. A simpler way to put it is I. . . sense my surroundings using my psychic powers. It is rather hard to explain."

Al's mind was buzzing with questions, each one vying for his attention, and an old excitement to learn was building in his chest. "Are you more like an inanimate object with psychic powers, or are you like a creature with mud like skin and stuff?"

"Hmmm, I suppose I'm a combination of those two things. I have bones, a brain, and a few other organs, but from what I was taught, Baltoy lack a nervous system. Our psychic abilities is what allows us to live and interact with the world, we use it almost constantly to keep us alive."

"How does a water attack not wash your clay away and leave just a skeleton behind, then?"

"As powerful as water attacks may be, our clay is a specific type that does not wash away easily, not even a hydro cannon can do something like that. I even have a fail safe where my psychic powers will reinforce my body."

Silver's eyes sparkled, and Balo fell silent. Suddenly, Rob stopped in front of them.

Looking up, Silver tried to discern the reason. There was a house in front of them, just a small shack, but it was by a dock that stretched out onto the water. A dingy old boat was bobbing, occasionally trying to drift off, but was tied rather efficiently to the dock.

Following Robby's gaze, Silver found himself staring at the back of a rather old man. His hair was a grayish white and he had a fishing pole that looked almost as old as his boat, Silver could only assume that the house and the boat was the man's, and was sitting on an old stool. A bait box sat next to him, guarded fiercely by a wingull, who was squawking at the various bird pokemon occasionally making a dive for the worms.

At least the dock is sturdy, was Silver's thought as he trotted after his trainer down the wooden planks. Balo floated uneasily behind them, his defense being 'just because water doesn't wash me away, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.' It was a very valid point, besides the fact he was levitating.

Robby stepped on a rather creaky board, and he cringed as the old man turned around to see the small group.

He didn't glare, or smile, instead opting for a yawn saying, "If yer here for a battle, ye'll be disappointed, laddy."

"Ah, no. I just wanted to see if you had seen an eevee that looked like this, recently." Al's heart twanged as Robby pulled out a picture of Griffin. In it, he had been taking a nap, and Laura had scooped him up into her arms, saying that it was the only good way to take a photo of him, since he didn't like holding still for the camera.

The old man stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Hmmm, can't say I have, lad. That there seems to be some rare thing, though. I'm only an expert of fish though, me and Peeko, here. Oh, where're me manners? The name's Briney-"

He cut himself with wide eyes, as his pole bent wildly and the string stretched taught. Arms tightening, he grits his teeth, and starts to fight the fish. Reeling in wildly, he stopped, letting the line trail slightly, he continued tugging at the fish. The line tugged back harder. Growling, his bushy eyebrows dropped into a glare and with one last back wrenching haul, the pokemon erupted from the water in a display of mist and fine water droplets.

She was majorly blue, with yellow eyes and black plus sins within the yellow. Two wire-like tails (or were they antenne?) sprouted from her rear end and ended in big, yellow bulbs right in front of her face.

Chinchou, the Angler Pokemon. When it senses danger, it discharges positive and negative electricity from its two antennae. It lives in depths beyond sunlight's reach. This is a water/electric type pokemon and is the first stage of its evolution line.

Mr. Briney cursed. "A chinchou?! I usually have to ger sailing to find one of these, not ta mention havin' a long fishing rod. Peeko!" The wingull squawked, taking off from the deck to circle over the water where the electric type was waiting. "Use water pulse!"

The bird's eyes narrowed and her beak opened a large sphere of water forming. With a twist of her neck, she launched it at the enemy floating in the water.

Chinchou's eyes narrowed in anger, but she didn't move out of the way, instead took the attack straight on. Water splashed up around her, shielding her from view. But as it returned to the ocean, it revealed that Chinchou was completely unharmed. Mr. Briney's jaw dropped.

"What! Even if it isn't very effective, water pulse should have done something. Unless. . ." Ordering Peeko to use wing attack, the old man observed the chinchou carefully.

Peeko's wings glowed a white color and with a flap, she dived down, skimming the surface of the water. Chinchou sparked, and a bright ball filled with crackling electricity appeared between the two bulbs. With a cry, it launched the electro ball straight into Peeko.

The smell of burnt feathers penetrated Silver's nose, making him wrinkle it in distaste.

Peeko wobbled on the air, but managed to make it over the dock before she collapsed in a heap. Mr. Briney softly pet the bird on the head, whispering 'good girl.' He turned to Robby. "Laddy, I might need yer help with this little rascal here."

Rob nodded, looking over to Balo . . . only to notice it wasn't there. Looking around wildly for his starter, he finally spotted the baltoy on land, far away from the water. Groaning, Robby ran a hand down his face in exasperation, while Silver only chuckled.

"Well, since Balo is to much of a COWARD," Rob yelled the last part loud enough for Balo to hear, hopefully, before continuing, "I guess you're gonna have to take care of this one, Silver."

Looking at the water, Al shuddered. Getting his fur wet was a hassle, one he tried to avoid when given a chance, so he was not going to like fighting water types. Not to mention trying to out swim a pokemon that lives in the ocean is anything but a good idea, especially since water is a great conductive of electricity. So that makes going into the water out of the question.

It's a good thing he knows swift.

Summoning the stars, they shot off, chasing after their target, who attempted to dodge them by diving underwater. Silver was forced to wait patiently for her to resurface, listening to the waves crash into the rocks below the dock absentmindedly.

She eventually did, jumping out of the water and unleashing a water gun, which the eevee swiftly avoided. Retaliating, he launched a new set of swift stars and they slammed into the water electric type while she was still in the air. She fell back into the water with a quiet plop and didn't come back up, most likely swimming away.

Silver spun around and was faced with a drenched Robby, looking rather disappointed. "Man," he voiced, "I really wanted to catch that one."

Mr. Briney, however, was just finishing up with treating Peeko's wounds. The bird let out a soft croon, but Briney just smiled. "Ya did yer best, Peeko. Never could'a expected reeling in a chinchou in these shallow waters."

Rob bit his lip thoughtfully. "That reminds me. Has this been happening a lot lately? I mean, fishing up wrong pokemon in the wrong places?"

Mr. Briney nodded gravely. "Aye, it's mighty troublin', too. Never happened before in my ol' memory of fishing, either. But," he stood up, "it ain't my business and it shouldn't trouble you youngin, leave stuff like this to the pokemon researchers."

"Right." Rob nodded, but hesitated. "I, er, was wondering if I could stay the night here?"

"Why'd ye want to do that? It ain't even nightfall yet."

"Well, I know I won't be able to get to the next town before nightfall, and I don't want to sleep in the Petalburg Woods, so I figured I'd stay here and do the rest of the trek in the morning." Rob stuttered, "I-I mean, if I managed to convince you."

Mr. Briney snorted. "Ya don't have to be so nervous, lad. Ye can stay if ye want."

Bowing slightly, Rob said, "Thank you." And he left to train for the remainder of the day.

Briney chuckled, looking down at Peeko fondly. She squawked and he patted her head. Sitting back on his stool, he baited his line and cast it out, reeling it in slowly. It snagged something. Sweat bead on his brow and he gave a sharp tug, sending himself tumbling backwards as he was offered no resistance.

Sitting back up, he rubbed his head, looking around for the fish. Seeing none, he frowned in confusion. But as his eyes landed on something sparkling, besides the sun reflecting on the water, they widened in surprise.

"I haven't fished up one of those in a long time."

Peeko squawked in agreement.

**Notes: To be honest, I didn't actually plan to put Ed in this chapter, I just couldn't figure out what else to do to make the chapter longer. I think it worked out.**

**Now everyone knows what the deal with Alchemy is. Too bad Al doesn't, but he's working on it, I swear. Also I looked on the FMA wiki so I could BS my way through it.**

**I tried to make Mr. Briney have a pirate-ish accent, cause that's how I think he sounds like, but I might have gotten it wrong. ****Peeko's battle was going to be longer, but I figured a 4x super effective move would be enough to stop her from battling. **

**Well, hope y'all liked the chapter!**

**What could the Man possibly want?**

**Who is the Man?**

**What will Ed evolve into?**

**What did Mr. Briney fish up?**

**Why is a deepsea pokemon this close to shore?**

**Review! Stay tuned! And stay safe!**


	7. Chapter 6

**AN: I updated!**

**Yay.**

**Usually I reply to comments by sending the commenter a PM, however, I finally got a guest review!**

**However, I feel like their concerns will be addressed in the VERY IMPORTANT author's note at the bottom.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. And this fanfiction is a good reason as to why I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.**

Chapter 6: Happenings in a Forest

Robby woke with the sun. Which was very un-Robby-like, and was definitely not the fault of his two pokemon who stretched 'wake me up early' out of proportion. He couldn't even be mad at them, because he was the one who said it before. Now he could only blame himself, since he was the one who didn't learn from his mistakes and be more specific.

That thought didn't help his tired eyes though.

With a yawn, he zipped up his backpack (that could probably fit a mountain in it) and slung it onto his shoulder. Rob could almost feel his pokemon's smug grins behind his back (which didn't make much sense because one of them didn't even have a mouth) as he tiptoed to the door cringing when one of his feet found a creaky board.

Mr. Briney had been very hospitable to them - the man even gave them dinner (the quickest way to any trainer's heart)- and Rob would hate to wake him in the early hours, even for a simple goodbye, his excuse being that he had said goodbye before he went to bed, just in case Mr. Briney wasn't a freakishly early riser and woke up at six o'clock naturally.

Reaching the door without any major casualties, Rob slowly twisted the door handle, Lifting the door in its frame slightly to avoid it scraping the floor. Then, in order to get all the inevitable hinge creaks out at once, he swiftly swung the door outward with the speed of Raikou, stopping it just before it hit the side of the cabin.

_CREEAAK_

Robby held his breath, tensely waiting to hear any sounds from within the house. The house was quiet, the only sound reaching his ears being the wind rustling the leaves in the trees and the grass sprouting from the ground along with the waves lapping at the shore.

Turning around swiftly, he repeated the process, swiftly swinging the door shut, slowing it just in time to close it fully. Another agonizing creak roared from the hinges, but it was short-lived and left a void of silence in its wake. Robby froze, waiting once more for any indication of noise.

His sigh of relief was near silent and was echoed by Silver, who also was facing the door. Turning around to begin his trek, he-

"Ya kids ar' terrible at bein' subtle."

With a undignified shriek (it was definitely not girlish whatsoever), Rob nearly jumped a foot in the air when it was revealed that was standing a few feet behind them. The old fisherman's face was unimpressed at the small group's pitiful attempt at sneaking away quietly.

"I didn't mean to wake you up-!" Came Rob's rushed apology. It wasn't something that he usually would have done (Al must have been rubbing off on him somehow), but he had started to like the honest old man.

Briney shook off the apologies. "No need for apologies, youngin', I've was already awake. Was trained into me when I was a young sprout like yerself."

"Oh." Rob's cheeks flushed, and the tip of his ears burned. must have seen him act like an idiot trying to keep quiet like that. But he wasn't laughing, and that was something the greenhorn pokemon trainer appreciated.

"Had to get up 'fore the birds did, else all da fish would be chased away." His tone was reminiscent, but didn't last as he remembered something else. "Anyway, I'm not holdin' ye up from yer journey with old stories, I'm here to give ye somethin' I fished up yesterday."

Reaching into his vest pocket, Briney withdrew a small bag (like one of those small bags you'd fill up with cheap rocks in gift shops). It wasn't empty, but whatever in it wasn't very big, or round for that matter. "Yer a pokemon trainer, so I figured ye would have more use of it than I have. Not teh mention it takes forever to find someone who buys it for the right price."

Robby nodded, taking the small bag and peaking inside it. A grunt of surprise escaped him. "How on earth did you fish this up!? I heard they were super rare, not to mention expensive. . ."

"A fisher never reveals his secrets."

Robby gave a rare real smile. "Thank you."

"It ain't some'in to be thankful for," Mr Briney grumbled, "think of it more as a send off gift."

Nodding, Robby turned away, not wanting to keep the man from his fishing any longer. He called out 'goodbye over his shoulder after a few steps and a reminder from Silver, but soon he was on his way to the Petalburg Woods.

. . .

Dirt scuffed underneath Rob's shoes and the dawn slowly painted the sky a light blue, a yellow line at the horizon line hinting the rising of the sun. The sky was slightly overcast and the slight breeze was enough to give Rob goosebumps, contrasting with the hot day yesterday. Besides him Silver was relishing in the cooler air breeze that, with his fur, wasn't too hot or cold. Balo seemed indifferent, but it was rather hard to tell on a creature with no facial expressions.

The trainer and his pokemon were getting closer to the tree line now. They had been walking down the main path lined with tall grass where wild pokemon wandered along with the occasional trainer. Robby didn't expect many people to be up this early, and he didn't trek in the grass either, not wanting to exhaust his pokemon before he even got to the forest.

"Hey you!" Snapping his head around, Robby is faced with a nicely dressed kid who definitely wasn't older than Rob was.

Great a rich kid. He thought, not exactly hiding his annoyance. Silver rolled his eyes.

"My name is Winston." Winston's chin was high in the air and he was staring down the bridge of his nose at Robby, who scowled. "Are you scowling at me? Sure."

Winston flipped a lock of pale blond hair from his face. "I accept your challenge." (Robby muttered, 'I'm not the one who did the challenging') "I have a lot of money," Winston continued, leaving Silver unsure if it was a bribe or something else entirely.

With a cocky smirk, Winston sent out his first pokemon. Silver blinked, only slightly disappointed that a zigzagoon was the pokemon that appeared. He had secretly been hoping for some rare pokemon that had been bought with a lot of money, but it looked like just a normal zigzagoon.

Balo spun to his place and the battle began with Robby calling out, "Confusion!"

Zigzagoon was ordered to use tackle, and managed to out speed the baltoy, slamming into it just before it unleashed the psychic type move on the racoon-esque pokemon.

"Zigzagoon, use tail whip!"

He spun around and shook his tail, effectively lowering Balo's defense, who retaliated with a rapid spin, rocketing towards the zigzagoon and sending him flying. Zigzagoon's sides were heaving and he looked a bit unsteady on his feet, a sure sign he was about to pass out.

Then Winston pulled out a potion. It wasn't any regular potion, no. It was a beige spray bottle with a clear part that showed green liquid inside. Winston unscrewed the lid and walked over to Zigzagoon. Smirking, he turned the bottle over and dumped all of its contents on Zigzagoon.

Robby's jaw dropped. "Did you just- the whole bottle-!" He sputtered, eyes wide with disbelief. "Did you just use a full restore on a fricken zigzagoon!?"

Winston opened his mouth to reply smugly, "Ye-"

Only to be cut off. "Don't answer that." Robby took in a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. "My real question is: why in the name of this pokemon-filled-planet would you do that!?"

Winston had the smirk that could give the legendary Blue Oak's the run of its money. "Regular potions are beneath me. Hahahaha- BWHAHAHAHA-!"

Robby facepalmed. The rich kid was still laughing maniacally while Zigzagoon sat there looking vaguely resigned. Silver called out, "Does he always do this?"

Zigzagoon nodded gravely. "He says he 'does it for the meme.' I honestly have no clue what he's talking about."

Balo spoke up. "Your trainer leaves you fully open for attack when he's laughing like that."

"Yeah, trainers usually use that to their advantage; they knock me out since Winston takes for-ev-er to stop laughing."

"That is rather unhonorable on your opponents behalf-"

Zigzagoon interrupted. "No-no. It is completely my own trainers fault, I don't blame them for capitalising on the weakness."

Robby dragged his hand down his face. Winston was still laughing, and Robby decided to stop giving the crazy rich kid a chance to redeem himself. Rob simply said, "Balo. End the battle."

. . .

Houses were tall enough to touch the sky, built upon the trees with grand canopies that sheltered all underneath. It was refreshing to see A city based on the concept of building upon what is already in existence instead of tearing it down.

The trees were tall and grand, but they left the ground beneath them in shadows. One would think that a city in the clouds would have no shady shortcuts or unnerving alleyways, but that couldn't be any more false. Afterall, the closer something is to the sun the larger shadow it casts on the ground below.

And when people live in paradise above it is easier to ignore the crime and impurity below.

It was commonly known that a town or city's gym leader often act as a governor over their city. They protect the people and manage various aspects of the town. They follow the orders of the regional league, who follows the orders of the national league. The National League doesn't really do very much to govern the people, they set the base laws of the nations and the Regional Leagues have to ask the National League before they alter any of the laws.

(A women scoffed, briefly wondering if the region would be this chaotic if the Draconis Tribe had stayed in power)

The Hoenn League was definitely one of the more 'hands off' league when compared to others. The League's Elite Four are often absent from their posts and the Champion has a side hobby that takes up almost as much time as manning the country. He allows the Gym Leaders to manage their city as they see fit.

It really shouldn't come as surprise that the city with the one of the highest crime rate is a city with a flying type gym leader. Winona is known for her beauty as much as she's known for having her head in the clouds. Maybe it was the peaceful atmosphere the town gave off as it lived in harmony with nature.

Visitors don't tend to look at the roots of the city either, instead getting distracted by the fact the city was built in the trees.

The police in Fortree City also have a bad habit of being relaxed on the job, but even they couldn't ignore something on the ground that went against the very laws Nature created herself. Police barricade tape had isolated a scene far down on the ground, where giant, tangled roots replaced the maze-like alleyways.

The police officers had panicked the moment they discovered the body. They didn't often patrol and they didn't often find many thugs either. So when they stumbled upon twisted flesh, an unholy amalgamation of parts that didn't match, they knew it wasn't something to be taken likely. Especially considering the sides were still heaving with breath.

Professor Birch was called, but he was all the way in Littleroot, so they had to call in local doctors to identify the body on sight.

The flashing lights on their bicycles (Fortree was a motor vehicle free city) painted the trees in a repeating fashion of blue and red. The sirens were turned off, as it was night time and they didn't want to arrest themselves for disturbing the peace. Multiple police officers were standing guard in an uncharacteristic manner, but it was an unusual situation.

Radio chatter was common as multiple people rushed to and fro in a near blind panic, all trying to get something done, but never succeeding. A shadowed figure observed them from a distance with a furrowed brow.

Their figure was clearly feminine, but the majority of her features were hidden by the dark night- the blue and red flashes coming from the police bikes were not bright enough to illuminate any of her key traits like hair or eye color.

She snuck closer to the scene, weaving her way between various trees, hiding just behind the shadows. She slid behind a large tree trunk just as a more level headed cop looked in her direction, narrowly avoiding his sight. Exhaling slightly in relief, the mysterious woman crept ever closer to the body, vaulting over the barricade tape and hiding behind the tree it was attached to in one motion. A moment later, she was standing over the grotesque body.

Her eyes widened with horror. "This- This- Is this _thing_ even alive. . ?" Her tone was low, but it did nothing to hide the disgust in her voice. Pokemon were a strange race: each one was different and each species was unique. They could be cute, cool, beautiful, creepy, powerful. . .

But this- this thing- there seemed to be no words to describe it other than a feeling. It was a feeling that struck the woman's very core, a feeling of innate wrongness that seemed to defy Mother Nature's very will.

"What," She swallowed, "what is Team Magma doing!?" It was a whisper, not enough to attract much attention, but with the police officers on edge, a light soon shone on her figure, illuminating her features.

"Who's there!?"

The woman was had dark hair, even with the flash light it was difficult to tell whether it was brown or black and her eyes were a deep brown. But none of those characteristics seemed to matter when the police officer saw her outfit; a black bandana with a strange symbol on it paired with a blue and white striped crop top that matched the blue and white striped leggings, which were underneath a tattered pair of booty shorts.

"U-uh, miss, you shouldn't be here, this is a crime scene. I need to escort you out of here. . ." The police officer trailed off, expecting a reply of some sort from the strange woman.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I was just on my morning run," The woman said innocently. "I'll be right over in a second, I got my legging caught in a bush." she rubbed the back of her head in an apologetic tone.

The police officer gulped and had the decency to look away. "You get that taken care of, and I'll escort you home." He pressed the button on his radio, speaking into it. "Sir, a lady just stumbled into the site of the body. She claimed she was on a walk when she got there."

There was a few moments of radio chatter later and the rustling of a bush before the police officer there spoke again into his radio. "Can I describe what she's wearing? Of course, sir. A black bandana and blue and white striped clothes. You want me to bring her to your office first? Yes-" The police officer turned around, noticing a lack of mysterious woman.

"Uh, Sir?" He began again, already starting to cringe.

"Sir, she's gone."

. . .

Robby thumbed through the pocket money he had earned just by fighting rich boy Winston. It made sense that a rich person would give more prize money when they lost, seeing as their own perception of currency is different from the poorer class of people(1,000 Poke would be seen as less in their eyes than the eyes of a middle class worker) as they have surplus amount of cash. The money he had earned from the bug catchers didn't even measure up to half, even when they were combined.

Not that Robby even cared about the money came from, money would pay for his food and supplies wherever.

The forest itself was pretty tranquil. The wind gently rustled the leaves in the trees and a few hidden bug types made chirpy noises from the canopy. A few old leaves were on the ground from the last Autumn that were occasionally picked up by the breeze and whisked away to an unknown location. The scent the forest gave off was also relaxing, a mix of sap and petrichor.

Even the bug trainers were pushovers, but it probably helped that none of their pokemon actually knew any bug type moves.

Silver would like to think that it was peaceful too, but the tree crackling of the leaves were annoying and the breeze blowing the canopies was particularly loud. The nincadas in the trees all were gossiping, _and I don't really care about how Tanna broke up with James or how a mysterious girl was abandoning her pokemon-_

_Wait._ Silver stopped, so suddenly that Rob threw a questioning glance at the eevee. _I _do_ care that a girl is abandoning her pokemon._

Turning abruptly to the group of nincadas that he heard the rumor from, Silver bounded off, much to the befuddlement of his trainer. He dove through bushes and jumped over tree roots, weaving through saplings that have yet to grow tall enough to be considered a full grown tree, skidding to a stop just before the gossiping nincadas. There was a lull in the chatter as they each individually noticed the newcomer.

Silver cleared his throat. "Excuse me."

The chatter died and all the bugs glanced uneasily at Silver. Whispered murmurs travel through the group briefly, one almost speaking up before they were quickly shushed. The alchemist-turned-eevee suddenly felt a type of nervous energy build up within him.

"I just have a question," he elaborated, waiting patiently for a response, any response.

That seemed to ease some of the tension in the crowd. Silver couldn't exactly see many of them; they were spread out among the branches of the tree, sometimes hiding behind branches, the leafy foliage, or simply concealing themselves with camouflage.

There was a scraping skittering noise, and soon a brave nincada responded in a nasally voice. "We have many answers, but that all depends on what your question is. . ."

Silver sighed, knowing he had accidentally discovered the pokemon equivalent of an information broker- he really wasn't surprised, though he had been hoping they were just friendly gossips. "I overheard a rumor recently," he started, "about a girl abandoning her pokemon in this forest. I was wondering if you could point me in the direction."

The nincada in charge sneered. "Our family's services are not cheap, small one," Leader Nincada's tone was stuffed up (Al wondered how they learned information could have a price- one would think forest dwellers with limited exposure to humans would be untainted by greed), "I hope you did not think you could get it for free."

Silver internally groaned. He knew they were playing hard to get (sometimes Breda told Al stories about dealing with information brokers, that was a common tactic) and -thanks to those stories- he also knew how to deal with it.

"Really? That's too bad." Silver gave a brief pause, making sure to make sure he sounded sincere (he doubted these bugs had any experience with a hustle), "I understand if you don't have the information on hand, I can always get the information from a different family, I'm sure they'll have the same information for free-"

The nincadas exploded in protest and outrage.

"How dare you-!"

"We have the best information!"

"Outrageous!"

"There is no way those simpletons down below can outdo us!"

"Silence!" shrieked the leader. It took far too long to quiet the family to be considered professional. The leader was nervous, and so was the family- neither had been challenged this way before. "I will tell you where the person is -for free! (he added, ignoring the protests of his family)- merely because this is the first time you are using our services." Leader Nincada gained some confidence. "Yes- it is a quality check of our services."

Silver briefly wondered if they were purposely stalling. "Well? Where is the girl abandoning her pokemon then?"

Leader Nincada nodded and whispers broke out, but faded from ear quickly, traveling through the forest like an efficient game of telephone. The whispers returned in mere seconds, and they traveled strait to the leader's ear, who promptly declared, "The pair are close to the north entrance to the forest- approximately five clearings to the east of the entrance and two clearings to the south from the north entrance. More details-"

The whispers stopped, and suddenly all nincadas were hidden from view. Silver sighed in exasperation, made acutely aware that his trainer had just entered the clearing from the heaving breaths and the leaves crunching dramatically behind him. The eevee had been able to extract the needed information quickly enough though.

Robby was gasping for air, pointing a finger at Silver. "Why-huff- did you- gasp- run off?!"

Silver shrugged sheepishly, feeling slightly guilty that he had, but not quite enough to regret it. Balo had the same question. "Why did you abandon Trainer Robby like that? He could have been injured if a horde of wild pokemon attacked us! Or if some- some- some villain was lurking in these woods. A villain with a dark type!"

Silver shook off his mounting guilt. "I doubt any of those things would happen."

Balo tsked. "According to Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong, will. I take Trainer Robby's safety very seriously."

The eevee chuckled. "Well I guess we're lucky nothing happened, aren't we?"

"I suppose. Though you haven't yet answered my question yet."

"Ah," Silver shrugged, feeling a little sheepish, "I overheard a rumor that a girl was abandoning a pokemon in this forest, so I went to investigate."

Balo glanced back to Rob, who was on the cusp of regaining his breath. "That does seem like an issue of moral dilemma. Trainer Robby would most likely want to hear about it."

Silver grinned at the approval from the serious pokemon. It wasn't often the baltoy agreed to whatever he was planning, sometimes it was hard to tell if Balo had a mischievous side or if it had zero sense of humor. It certainly acted that way.

It really only took a few more moments of convincing (read: stealing some item then running off - it was the best way to get his often times oblivious trainer to follow him) in order be off running to wherever a person was ruining the life of her partner.

. . .

Sheryl was having a bad day.

It may have been a pleasant day in the forest (which was something truly splendid for an aromatic enthusiast), but there was something amiss that fouled the clean air that wafted into her senses. The source of the metaphoric and literal stench that ruined her day was none other than the disgrace of a grass type that sat in front her her.

She sighed, staring down in disappointment at the budew, the male budew, sitting pathetically on the forest floor by her feet.

_Maybe if. . . No. If I'll keep him, all he'll do is cause trouble for me. Not to mention he's _useless_._ Sheryl couldn't keep the budew.

Her job as an aromatherapist wasn't something she'd take lightly, after all. She'd even been breeding all her roselia so she could create the best soothing scents, but it was well know to even amateurs like herself that males in the roselia line don't have nearly as pleasant of a smell as the ladies.

It takes a couple of weeks for budew to manifest their own scent, so Sheryl couldn't just abandon the young sapling the moment it hatched. She has been doing this for a while now (really only two breeding seasons- Spring through Summer- but that isn't nearly enough time to even be considered an adept budew breeder), so the 'give away' portion of the breeding didn't really affect her as much as it had the first time- she often sold the budew to caring trainers, or made sure they transition into wild pokemon smoothly, but she definitely gave less attention to failures, now.

Sheryl had grown accustomed to the separation and the failure, but she had high hopes for this budew in particular. It (he, she reminded herself) had shown all the wonderful signs of being the perfect Nature for soothing scents- Nature was, afterall, one of the leading factors behind the different aromas, being the second largest factor behind gender.

All of her other male budews had been bought already, and Sheryl was surprised that, out of all of them, this was the one who was left behind. It had a rather good nature for battling, but then again most of her budews were bought by contest wannabees or other hopeful aromathists (Though she doubted they would get very far with a male) and modest wasn't exactly an ideal Nature for showboating.

Sheryl sighed, shaking her head. "If only you were a girl; you had the perfect Nature!"

Budew whimpered out a quiet "Buw. . ."

She tsked, flipping a lock of brown hair behind her shoulder. "I'm dropping you off here. Goodbye."

With that, Sheryl took out Budew's pokeball along with a hammer and nail. Budew sat still, sappy tears pooling in his eyes. Crouching down, she placed the ball on the ground, bracing it, leveled the nail in the crack between the two sides, and drove the hammer into the nail.

_Ting_

The sound reverberated with a metallic ring. The nail was now solidly wedged in the capsule. One more hit should do the trick.

_Crack!_

There. Done. Sheryl stood back up, taking the two broken halves of the machine with her. The mechanisms within a pokeball are very fragile, but the outside is constructed to be able to take a beating. However, it isn't very hard to break one if you knew where to hit it.

Sheryl dusted her skirt off, sending a glare at the small grass type without a home. "Don't follow me back."

The aromatherapist then hurried off, oblivious of the trio who would soon stumble upon the budew destined to be alone.

. . .

In an unknown place, at an unknown time...

Ed was getting tired of the starvation thing they had going on.

Honestly, after the shock wore off (which essentially happened after the guy who kidnapped him left the room), Ed found their methods of intimidation were laughable. Not to mention the leader obviously had a screw loose, if he thought a) that the best source of information was a pokemon (he has had several conversations with various domestic ones, and the intelligence of normal types tended to be lackluster) and b) that he thought he'd be able to get anything out of Ed.

Who cares if the bast way to a person's heart is through their stomach? It was a game of chicken, and Ed knew he wouldn't be the first to give.

Not to mention the fact they had a quadruped in chains, when keeping him in his pokeball is definitely the best way to contain a pokemon (he preferred the chains), especially if that pokemon had recently rediscovered the fact he could use Alchemy.

Yeah, he was not going to keep playing this game of chicken.

**Notes:**

**This is the VERY IMPORTANT author's note:**

**Recently, people have been leaving wonderful criticisms(not sarcasm, I swear). They address that fact of how I am not really incorporating Ed and Al's experiences into the fanfiction. I agree that I have failed to do so. However, this isn't the main reason of why I will no longer be updating this fanfiction, until I potentially rewrite it. I don't know where I'm taking the plot. I have a few plot twists written out, but plot twists mean nothing if there is no end to the story.**

**At the moment, I don't have any intentions of rewriting this. SO! If anyone wants to use the basic idea as a prompt (Ed and Al ending up in the Pokemon world as pokemon) feel free to do so!**

**I admit that I kinda botched this story by not focusing enough on how different characters would react to this type of scenario. I won't be taking it down, mostly because it was the first one I posted on this site. And some people seem to enjoy it despite the many mistakes.**

**I'm using this as an opportunity to learn. Maybe I'll rewrite it eventually.**


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